For those of you who have owned it for 6+ months, how's the reliability? I've seen reviews on other sites where people say the drive has failed them.
285310
One died within 2 weeks of receiving it, one is still going strong at 6 months and a fair bit of use. Quite fast when it works. Working on RMA with PNY now, we'll see.
285311
Mine failed after a week...DO NOT believe the Amazon reviews!!! Go to Newegg where the customers have a tremendously higher Tech IQ and find out what a piece of crap this is. Contacted them 3 times and submitted RMAs all three times. Called them on phone and of course no live person so you leave a message and they never get back to you. I called again and demanded a live supervisor....guess what...voice mail again. If I don't hear from them in 24 hours, I'm going to the Better Business Bureau or whomever takes care of these lazy ripoff Corps. Once they have your money, they don't care less.
285312
You will find only negatives answer questions like this. I've had the 128gb model for over a year. I'm a photographer, i keep my lightroom catalog on it and all of my current working files. I transfer large amounts of data between this and my home network as i work, along with editing the files directly on the flash drive. Bottom line is this drive gets used very heavily. Still going strong.
285313
I've owned the 64GB for over a year. The plastic around the keyring broke after a few months of use (so no more keyring usage for it), but the flash drive itself still works as good as it did on day 1.
285314
I purchased two in Oct 2013 and use them on alternate months to back up 100 GB of files. One is for the even numbered months the other for odd numbered months. So I have used each at least 6 times. I have had no issues.
285315
I used it one time to safeguard some files. I took it out to access those files after 3 months and the flash drive is DEAD!!! Tried it on 3 computers, Nothing
285316
Mine failed after 31 days. Amazon only warranties for 30 days. I am trying to get PNY to replace it. PNY warranty is 1 year. You need to register.
285317
Mine failed sometime between 3 and 4 months. I plugged it into the back of my Amazon Fire TV box to expand app storage, so it was "always on". Now it's dead.
704264
Candidly, I think it really doesn't matter what the ratings are. I know it is somewhat the same as the WD Red drives. The key is whether they continue working and last a while. I have had drives by other makers that had 3 year warranties and lasted over 5 years before I retired them (all were still working). Lots of the numbers thrown to the consumer by drive companies have little meaning when it comes to mean fail times as everyone uses drives differently and it also depends on what drives you get and what shape they were in.
513138
I would use nothing BUT these drives in anything I built or upgraded. They're a bit pricier, and no one ever thinks about it, but the warranty on THESE hard drives, the WD Black series, is a full 5Y. VERY few other mfrs even offer a 5y warranty. And WD drives earn that warranty reputation, I haven't had a WD drive fail, EVER. In each case -- over a dozen -- they've become useless through increasing capacity, never mechanical/electronic failure. That is, I probably have an 80gig WD drive that's still functioning. It's just not worth plugging in and taking up a SATA channel when I can get that capacity on a freaking flash drive nowadays... Yes, they're that good. You can "save money" by buying something cheaper. But you'll pay in the long run with headaches from lost data, or time spent rebuilding your windows/software/os and tweaking it back to the way you had it. The HD is the soul of your machine. Everything else fails, you can practically swap a part back in and you're up and running. But the HD fails and you've got a multiday to longer term headache to get things back to "normal". And, for general purposes, they're among the best drives in performance terms, too. Tom's Hardware may rate something else marginally faster, but not by much. And not by enough to drag you away from WD Black. As the old saw goes, once you go Black, you'll never go back. :-D
1013010
No failures, but I have 2 of these drives and both of them have seen 1000+ hours of use as I use them for video storage, editing, and viewing with no problems.
1326414
Just to throw in my 2 cents here, the Disk Utility reformat mentioned above in Andrew's post is spot-on. The drive so far as been great to use. However, I'm running Mac 10.5.6 and it was immediately recognized when I first plugged it in: it mounted and Time Machine asked if I wanted to use it for backups... I did the reformatting anyway as the apps on board are no use to a Mac owner. BTW, the $99 price was unbelievable! Fingers crossed on reliability, Yikesboy
1502977
It's hard to say. I've had varied experience with Seagate drives. Some have lasted 7 or 8 years; and one lasted only 2 years. I've only had this one for a few months. I don't take chances. I back up my computers daily to this drive; and I back it up monthly to another large drive that I keep away from the house. I hope this helps.
580083
This is my first experience with an external drive. I've had no problem with this item. I do suggest you get a larger capacity drive as the prices have been falling lately on the external drives.
482505
That is no rule of thumb I have ever heard in my 15 years in IT. Seagate/Maxtor makes up the 'lower tier' of drive brands. Hitachi/Samsung are slightly more reliable. WD is still reliability king. Even if you get a good Seagate/Maxtor drive they are prone to fail after a few years, right after the warranty expires. The large capacity drive firmware issues they've been having this last year or so has just sullied their reputation even further and the kind of bugs they've had recently in fully released firmware is inexcusable. Seagate has recently earned their rep as the bottom rung hard drive supplier firmly and deservedly and that by a country mile. That is no rule of thumb I have ever heard in my 15 years in IT. Seagate/Maxtor makes up the 'lower tier' of drive brands. Hitachi/Samsung are slightly more reliable. WD is still reliability king. Even if you get a good Seagate/Maxtor drive they are prone to fail after a few years, right after the warranty expires. The large capacity drive firmware issues they've been having this last year or so has just sullied their reputation even further and the kind of bugs they've had recently in fully released firmware is inexcusable. Seagate has recently earned their rep as the bottom rung hard... » Read More That is no rule of thumb I have ever heard in my 15 years in IT. Seagate/Maxtor makes up the 'lower tier' of drive brands. Hitachi/Samsung are slightly more reliable. WD is still reliability king. Even if you get a good Seagate/Maxtor drive they are prone to fail after a few years, right after the warranty expires. The large capacity drive firmware issues they've been having this last year or so has just sullied their reputation even further and the kind of bugs they've had recently in fully released firmware is inexcusable. Seagate has recently earned their rep as the bottom rung hard drive supplier firmly and deservedly and that by a country mile. « Show Less
629559
I just had a Western Digital 2TB My Book fail miserably (miserably!!! Dead!) after two months. I've never had any other drive fail (and I've used much smaller capacity WD external drives w/out issue in the past). But i'm now a Seagate (1TB Freeagent) user because I won't trust the larger WD's any longer. Once bitten! ;) Since the failure, many of my colleagues have admitted the same type of failure from their WD's and are using Seagates with good results. If you search online, you'll see very mixed reviews with similar negative views of the Seagates, but I can only speak from my own very frustrating experience with my WD. I just had a Western Digital 2TB My Book fail miserably (miserably!!! Dead!) after two months. I've never had any other drive fail (and I've used much smaller capacity WD external drives w/out issue in the past). But i'm now a Seagate (1TB Freeagent) user because I won't trust the larger WD's any longer. Once bitten! ;) Since the failure, many of my colleagues have admitted the same type of failure from their WD's and are using Seagates with good results. If you search online, you'll see very mixed reviews with similar negative views of the Seagates, but I can only speak from my own very... » Read More I just had a Western Digital 2TB My Book fail miserably (miserably!!! Dead!) after two months. I've never had any other drive fail (and I've used much smaller capacity WD external drives w/out issue in the past). But i'm now a Seagate (1TB Freeagent) user because I won't trust the larger WD's any longer. Once bitten! ;) Since the failure, many of my colleagues have admitted the same type of failure from their WD's and are using Seagates with good results. If you search online, you'll see very mixed reviews with similar negative views of the Seagates, but I can only speak from my own very frustrating experience with my WD. « Show Less
2232316
Don't know, mine failed after 90 days. Not sure 3rd-party units are ready for prime time; OE units in laptops, etc. seem to be OK. If data is critical, stick to proven tech: mechanical HDs. Sometimes older is better.
1882756
Newegg says 3 years parts/labor. After searching for an hour I couldn't find this on Seagate's website. You'd think they'd be bragging about it on billboards since practically everyone else is down to 1 year (and wouldn't surprise me if they all got rid of a warranty altogether and made people buy at their own wallet's peril).
1034516
I have had nothing but bad luck with LaCie drives, I have had two of them not function out of the box. My experience is the exact opposite with the G Drive, these drives are quiet, and seem to run forever. I have not had a single issue with any one of the seven I own
482506
I have been loking around for an external drive, and I've noticed they all fail! IMO the best way to gois to have 2 of the drives and do a periodic copy of each to each. I have a free agent on my mac and it has been working perfectly, but I am looking for a drive to back up between a PC and a mac. Two cheap drives may be more reliable than a single more expensive, since they all fail and you cant "pay out" of the uncertainty. Change that: Buy two expensive hard drives and dont even fool with the Seagates..
697990
Thank you for contacting us. I am not sure so I looked at other posts about this. It seems they are very close in performance but this stood out: "The other thing to keep in mind when choosing a drive is that Western Digital?s enterprise drives are meant to be constantly in use, 24/7. The consumer drives are rated for 300,000 load/unload cycles, whereas the enterprise drives are are rated for double that at 600,000 load/unload cycles. This means the enterprise drive is guaranteed to have a longer use-life than a consumer drive under identical conditions." Please let me know if I can be of further assistance.
563274
I don't know why someone would say that. I have found them to be the most reliable drives I have ever owned. In fact, I can honestly say that I have never had to replace a Western Digital RE drive because of a failure. We have replaced some that were small enough to be obsolete, but in my recollection have never replaced one for any other reason in 9 years of business. Of course, your mileage may vary. We do make sure to keep them cool.
2154360
I have been using it with Mavericks for six months. I haven't had a single problem. However I only use it as a Time Machine backup drive.
457324
Yes, I have used this drive from W7 up to a fully updated W8.1 and have had no issues. It's a great drive.