Seagate started tanking, not surprisingly, shortly after they acquired Maxtor. Generally the last good stretch of Seagate drives was just before 750GB was the top size.
When the drives started reaching 1TB capacity... There were models where they started throwing Seagate branded drives into Maxtor external cases... And that was when it all went to shit. The infamous 7200.11 series.
Dealing with the 7200.11 drives was like the capacitor plague. They seemed to work well long enough to get other people to buy loads... then the firmware problems... then the sudden head crash problems... then the sudden won't power up anymore after a reboot problems...
All the same kind of shit that people saw with Maxtor post 2GB that caused people to stop using those drives en masse. Those old 2GB Maxtor drives were reliable as fuck, though.
I'd normally end something like this with a bit about how history repeats itself and I fear for the next drive company that will get bought out by Seagate, but when you look at it... We're down to two with a small smattering of subsidiaries that no one can really be sure are rebrands or proper made drives.
Case in point. Hitachi is owned by WD and Samsung HD is owned by Seagate now. Toshiba owns some WD assets and bought out Fujitsu's HD division. Beyond that, not much left.
When the drives started reaching 1TB capacity... There were models where they started throwing Seagate branded drives into Maxtor external cases... And that was when it all went to shit. The infamous 7200.11 series.
Dealing with the 7200.11 drives was like the capacitor plague. They seemed to work well long enough to get other people to buy loads... then the firmware problems... then the sudden head crash problems... then the sudden won't power up anymore after a reboot problems...
All the same kind of shit that people saw with Maxtor post 2GB that caused people to stop using those drives en masse. Those old 2GB Maxtor drives were reliable as fuck, though.
I'd normally end something like this with a bit about how history repeats itself and I fear for the next drive company that will get bought out by Seagate, but when you look at it... We're down to two with a small smattering of subsidiaries that no one can really be sure are rebrands or proper made drives.
Case in point. Hitachi is owned by WD and Samsung HD is owned by Seagate now. Toshiba owns some WD assets and bought out Fujitsu's HD division. Beyond that, not much left.