seagate-slim-backkup-external-hard-drive

My Seagate External Hard Drive Backup Plus SLIM died yesterday! It was only 9 months old. And I have NEVER had an external hard drive crash before! Even after years and years. Seagate is a trusted brand for internal & external hard drives. I got my 2 Terabyte Drive at Costco for $90 in January 2017.

Read this and then make sure you are backed up on a virtual drive like Backblaze! Because your external drive can fail too!

At first I thought my MacPro Laptop was having a terrible seizure as it kept shutting off and going black screen. I had to keep rebooting. All this time I was still plugged into the external drive.

I was freaking out! I got my MacPro laptop in January with the fancy touch screen and it’s been an amazing and glorious piece of equipment. So what the hell was going on?

An hour with Apple Support on the phone didn’t resolve it.

Then I heard my external hard drive making a terrible whining/crunching sound. It’s usually totally quiet.

I thought “Oh great! My Macbook is failing and my external hard drive is freaking out too!” I unplugged the external and put it in another port and it started making beeping sounds. Then started grinding again and the external drive icon wouldn’t show up on my desktop.  The situation was dire.

(BTW, my external HD has ALL my work files on it, misc., music and photos included, as I like to keep my laptop clear of data to make it faster. However, I have a virtual backup of all the files on the external. Thank Gawd.)

I called Seagate support as I was still under warranty for the external hard drive and the rep said UNPLUG THE DRIVE RIGHT NOW!!! So I did.

He said the drive had failed and it was dead. No going back. All data lost. Fuggitboutit.
If I kept it plugged in it would just corrupt the data on it.

Once I unplugged the external drive my MacBook Pro was FINE. Which was a giant PHEW! at my end. The external hard drive was what had been screwing the laptop up!

I had not connected (in my mind) the external drive failing to the freak-out that was happening with my MacBook. So if ever your Mac seems to be failing, look at your external devices first and disconnect them! Then see if your Mac is OK.

The Seagate rep said the fail rate was 2% of external hard drives. And mine was in that 2%.

Anyhoo, I contacted Backblaze (the virtual backup I recommend) and had them download all my files to a disc to send to me. It was $189 for the disc, but if I return the disc in 30 days I will get a refund for the full amount. HOORAY!  I’ll get my disc next week. In the meantime I can go to the BackBlaze site and download files as I need.

Seagate said I could send back the broken external hard drive and get a replacement, at my expense to ship it back!

Which I thought was kinda crappy on their end as their product had FAILED and caused me hardship and now I had to pay for shipping it back to get a replacement. Whaaaaa?  I am currently NOT “one of the MILLIONS of satisfied customers” of Seagate.

Not only that, but they had specific packing directions, like putting it in a box with Thermoformed Plastic, like I have Thermoformed Plastic lying around. OR I could pay $15 and get the replacement hard drive and then ship the broken one back to them in the same packaging. So I did that for $15. But still I was MAD! that I had to pay for their failed device to ship it back and get a new one!

If an Apple device fails they sends out a box to replace it (Overnight) and pick it up for free. So what the heck Seagate? Where is your customer service? Their product fails and I have to pay to ship back their failed, broken hardware? And ship it back in a box made for a princess? See below, the packing instructions are ridiculous. Poop on you Seagate.

Here’s the instructions from Seagate on my sending back their broken device.
Yes – Single Pack Thermoformed Plastic, or I can use rubber, but absolutely no bubble wrap, no newspaper or packing peanuts.

In the aftermath I have decided to get the Apple External Hard Drive as my main back-up external device, and I’ll use the replacement Seagate for Time Machine backup – since I can’t do Time Machine on Backblaze. So I will have double backup – well triple with BackBlaze.

Take away from this ranting article? YOU NEED A VIRTUAL BACKUP (and a Time Machine backup too if you have a Mac) regardless of how great you think your Mac or PC is. Because your computer can fail, your external hard drives can fail, you could have fire, flood, theft and if you don’t have a virtual back-up like Backblaze ($50 a year) you will be SCREWED. OK? All your files and pictures and music LOST.

So get your digital life together and get a virtual backup to save your butt in case of failures.  Click here for my BackBlaze affiliate link that I have blatantly used all over this post. 

You think $50 a year is too much for BackBlaze? Think about how much it’s worth when all your data is gone! You’ll be crying more than $50 bux worth. Trust me. You will be crying like this guy:

Seagate back up fail face

Awwwwww, no back up plan!

Here’s my other posts about Backblaze if you need more convincing: