🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <44253@cornell.UUCP>, martin@gvax.cs.cornell.edu (Bill Martin) writes:
> My 3+ year old Seagate ST-225 20-Meg drive has developed
> a 'head-seek' problem, according to the Rainbow Winchester
> diagnostics.  Seagate will send me a refurbished 20-meg
> drive, with a 90-day warrantee, for $115 plus the old drive.
> Since several writers have mentioned past problems they've had with
> the ST225, I'm wondering if I should instead buy another larger 
> drive (30 Meg or higher) and forget the trade-in described
> above.  The new drives seem to be in the $300-$400 range,
> and the additional capacity might make the extra money
> worth it.  Does anyone have an opinion about this ?

Frankly, I don't think I'd take an ST-225 as a gift.  We had
a whole series of them on a Rainbow and some PC's, and had
_lots_ of trouble (including several that came back from Seagate
under the deal you describe, going bad just past the 90 day mark).
When you take into account the estimated life span of the drive
(maybe 6 months?) and your time, $115 doesn't sound like getting
off so cheaply.  The drives we got back from Seagate consistently
had shorter lifespans than new drives, not that new Seagate ST-225
drives have all that great a lifespan (!!).

For what it's worth, I have heard that Seagate had some severe
quality control problems with the ST-225 and that they are now
"fixed".  I'm not sure I believe this, since we heard similar
things the whole time we were going through the 225 mess, but
several people who "ought" to know have said that this does
appear to be the case.

This is not necessarily to bash all Seagate products - we have
had much better luck with the ST-251 (a 40 MB drive), and I
have heard that that drive has never had the sorts of quality
control problems that the ST-225 production lines had.

Good luck -

						Bruce C. Wright