Amazon.com: Customer reviews: (Old Model) Seagate 2TB NAS HDD SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache 3.5-Inch Internal Bare Drive (ST2000VN000)

Top positive review

So Smooth! Zero Vibration.

Reviewed in the United States on January 12, 2014

Good packaging, and arrived very quickly. Boxed inside OEM style cardboard boxes with plastic holders on each end of the hard disk, just like an OEM box. Bought 2, both work perfectly out of the box. On other sites, I noticed these Seagates have the best reviews for entry level NAS/RAID drives.

These drives are absolutely totally silent when idle, you can't hear anything, and you literally can't tell you have 2 of these running in an open computer case, now that's quiet! I will just say, I don't know how they make something this smooth and quiet. Even if you place your hand on top of this drive, you can't feel it spinning.

On reading the hard drives makes some noise while seeking, but overall they are just as quiet as my old Samsung 5400 RPM drive.

My old WD Blue 500GB vibrates so much and is so loud that it seems like a primitive piece of junk in comparison to these Seagate NAS drives, and it's been running fine for 5 years. These Seagate drives are exceptionally refined.

Installed both, no DOA, they work great. I've copied about 500 GB of information and haven't had any issues whatsoever in Raid 1 with an Adaptec 3405 hardware raid card.

This drive is a NAS drive, otherwise known as a raid drive. You need to use NAS drives for all RAID controllers, Raid 0, Raid 1 or Raid 5, etc. Because regular drives don't have a 7 second timeout limit on error recovery, called TLER, "time limited error recovery."

Raid drives have a 7 second timeout limit on disk errors. If you use a non-raid desktop drive which could go beyond 7 seconds while repairing a data error, a RAID controller can mark the disk as totally defective, and disconnect it from your raid array.

Generally people who use non RAID/NAS drives complain about losing entire raid arrays simply because of the way desktop drives handle errors. Look up the failure rate for non-raid drives used in a raid. It's disturbing. It is because normal hard disks don't have TLER enabled.

Now, TLER is simply a firmware setting, but at the time of this writing, it is not something you can change on desktop hard disks. In order to get TLER, you must spend more money on a NAS/RAID drive.

As an example, WD Greens will not work in a raid properly, because those drives do not have TLER. When used in a raid array they have been known to crash.

Furthermore you don't want to use a NAS/RAID drive without a raid controller. Because raid hard disks notify the raid controller of disk data errors, instead of trying to repair the data on their own like conventional desktop drives.

Desktop drives are good at handling errors because they can sit and grind away for 1 minute if necessary, repairing the disk, while a raid drive will time out, and force the controller to repair the bad data.

For best results, use a hardware raid controller with a NAS/RAID drive, and use desktop drives for software raid, or fake raid, or non-raid.

I purchased a used Adaptec 3405 Hardware raid card for $60 with a cable, and bought 2 of these drives for RAID 1 (mirror.) This combination required absolutely no software drivers, no software installation, just plug and play.

To create an array you do it before the computer boots up, by accessing the Adaptec 3405 raid card bios. This doesn't require any drivers, so you don't need a floppy disk drive, or internet, or a CD Rom. After configuration of a hardware raid card, Linux OS or Windows OS sees the raid array as one single drive.

If you are using fake raid, which is the raid built in on your motherboard, you will need to install drivers to get the fake raid to work.

Hardware raid is the easiest, fastest thing I've ever seen, and for $60 to have a hardware raid card, it seems pointless to use the built in motherboard "fake raid" which is a software raid.

With hardware raid 1 (mirror), if a drive starts making noises or indicates an error, you simply pull it out and replace it with any new one of the same capacity, doesn't have to be the exact brand or model of the original. The hardware raid will automatically start rebuilding the new drive.

With the hardware raid, I experimented by unplugging one of the drives from the hardware raid card, and plugging it into my motherboard SATA port. The disk reads just like a conventional hard disk, the hardware raid card does not render a hard disk unreadable. In the event that a raid card dies, if using Raid 1, you can just remove a drive and plug it into any onboard SATA port, then you have your data back.

22 people found this helpful

Top critical review

Critical reviews›

sLIpperyFingER

Poor longevity and support from Seagate on these drives...please research "Seagate HDD reliability" before making a purchase.

Reviewed in the United States on February 14, 2017

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SEP 2017 UPDATE
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Exactly as I feared in my original review, another two drives failed within hours of each other in the last week. Both drives show abnormal SMART statuses but one is complete toast (vibrating/buzzing loudly). I have had to power down the NAS as the RAID array has been left with no redundancy as well as a compromised drive... at this point, the risk of complete data loss is extremely high and I'm skeptical I can recover this array.
My only hope at this point is that the drive that still spins OK will continue to survive while the array is rebuilt onto a replacement drive. I have reached out to Seagate to see if they're prepared to stand behind their customers and offer me replacements drives as this saga continues to unfold.
I will update this review accordingly and consider adding a star if they're prepared to do so.

I should also point out that these drives have never encountered any environmental issues that could be attributed to the failure rate I've experienced - the drives have run their entire (short) lives in the same NAS that never moves and sits in a dehumidified climate controlled basement with an average temp of 67dF. The NAS is also connected to a voltage regulating APC UPS to eliminate the possibility of any electrical damage.
The duty cycle is also minimal as the NAS is used primarily as a back-up and the disks are typically only spun up nightly for no more than ~1-2hrs at a time.
I am convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is an inherent flaw within these drives that Seagate is well aware of but is unwilling to acknowledge.

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FEB 2017 UPDATE
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Seagate ended up honoring the warranty for the disk failure that prompted me to write this review. They sent me a Re-certified Drive in Feb 2017. While I appreciate them coming through on this, it does not change my position in this review as this is what should've happened in the first place.

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ORIGINAL REVIEW
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I've run no less than 15 Seagate drives and similar numbers of competing drives in multiple NASes and external HDD's over the last 15 years and, in both drive longevity and support, Seagate has consistently scraped the bottom of the barrel.

My first taste of what to expect with Seagate was when 3 of 6 NAS drives failed within a few months of each other while still inside the 3 yr warranty period. That was disturbing in itself but the taste got real sour when Seagate then backed out of covering the warranty because the retailer I purchased them through had gone out of business and was considered "unauthorised".

Being a glutton for punishment, the low pricing and my own idiocy saw me purchase 4 of these 4TB drive and yes, they've burned me again.
I had one drive fail the SMART test a week before the warranty period ended so I notified Seagate... they require you to run an archaic data-destructive "Seatools for DOS" test on NAS drives to confirm the drive has indeed failed which I had to put on hold until I had the means to backup the RAID group the compromised drive was running in.
Revisiting the case a few weeks later when I finally had my back-ups sorted and was able to pull the drive for further testing - Seagate's says, "We're sorry, but your drive is not within the warranty period". I plead my case having already provided my proof of purchase but their system now says I filed the claim ~3 weeks outside of the 3yr warranty period so they've left me out to dry again.
Adding insult to injury are plenty of articles that have since been written about Seagate's horrific 3TB and 4TB drive failure rates (in some cases >20% inside 3 yrs) which gives me no confidence the other 3 drives are going to last much longer.

By contrast, I still have Western Digital/HGST, Hitachi and Toshiba drives that were still going strong after 5yrs of continuous NAS use and simply outlived their usefulness.

Given my saga with Seagate has now cost me several thousand dollars and bereft of functional products, I vowed to inform others of my experience so they can make an informed decision.
I rolled the dice twice and got burned both times... Seagate has ensured I will never buy their product again.

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Steve C.

Great cool running drives. The NEXT two were DOA

Reviewed in the United States on November 3, 2013

Capacity: 2TBStyle: Standard DriveVerified Purchase

Ordered two of these for backup drives. Why not? They were less expensive than many other drives and were designed as 24/7 network drives.

The drives run cooler than the old drives. Very quite running, which is good as noise is a symptom of failing hard disks. I have gotten 64MB/second sustained writes of very large files.

If you are looking for backup drives you can't go wrong with these.

Update!!!!!!! Update!!!!!!! Update!!!!!!! Update!!!!!!!

The first two I ordered got to me in prime condition, they still work and still running cool and quiet.

So I decide I needed two more.

BIG MISTAKE!

The next two came inside a very large box inside their small boxes WITHOUT ANY packing what so ever. Just rattling around in UPS's very nasty delivery system.
Not only that but one of the drives came without it's spindle cap/cover. It was NOT inside the sealed bag. Which leads me to believe that these drives are returns-refurbished.... Tried them out and NOTHING. Just a slight vibration and then NOTHING.

On top of that I sent the drives back to AMAZON and the AMAZON fulfillment have yet to receive them.....

So! Not only did NOT get what I ordered, but I got used/refurbished/returned/defective merchandise.

This is probably AMAZON fulfillment's fault and in no way reflects on the drives manufacturer.

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

JCR

Great value NAS drives!

Reviewed in the United States on July 17, 2016

Capacity: 2TBStyle: Standard DriveVerified Purchase

Added 2 of these to my 5-bay QNAP NAS which initially had 2 WD Red 2TB drives in a RAID 1 mirror. Created a RAID 5 array with all four drives (2 WD Reds, and 2 of these Seagates). As of the time of this writing, the Seagate drives are about $10 cheaper than the WD Reds, and at least from what I can tell, they are better performing.

It's worth noting that my WD Reds are about a year old, so I'm not sure if anything has changed since they were manufactured. The Reds are 5400RPM drives, while these Seagates are 5700RPM, which is an odd speed, but nevertheless, slightly faster. For a NAS, the speed doesn't really matter though (at least in my application, which is just streaming video and storing files). But, when there are write operations, the activity lights blink constantly on the drive bays with the WD Reds installed, and they only blink in short bursts on the Seagate bays, which tells me that the Reds are the bottleneck.

Noise level is mostly fine. I will say that these drives are not as quiet as the WDs, but they aren't loud either. During the array initialization, they did make quite a bit of noise as the drives were being formatted (both of them spinning up together sounded almost like rushing water). During normal use though, I don't really notice them, and they sit right next to my desk.

I've only been using these drives for a few weeks, so I can't comment on reliability.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

rdagger

7 years and still running

Reviewed in the United States on January 30, 2023

Capacity: 2TBStyle: Standard DriveVerified Purchase

I have 2 of these drives in a Synology NAS that is a surveillance server. They have been running for 7 years and are still working. One is running about 7 degrees hotter than the other so it might not last much longer. Still, I have had several of newer Seagate, WD and Toshiba drives fail in other systems after just 2 years so I very satisfied.

Helpful

metalheadjc

Good Price for a Good Drive (specs below)

Reviewed in the United States on September 13, 2013

Capacity: 2TBStyle: Standard DriveVerified Purchase

I got the 2TB version, to be clear. I read a lot of good reviews and decided to try it out on my own. Installed it in an Anker external enclosure by itself. Transfer speeds are about 130MB/s reading and 150MB/s writing via USB 3.0. That's fast enough for me, considering that the only thing that it hinders by not being EXTRA fast is just file transfers to other hard-drives, and the extra second or two here or there is no big deal. I think that if you were using it to serve up files to multiple users, you MAY have concern for the speed, but I'm not even convinced that would be a problem.

It's running cool and quiet. 37 degrees C in the external enclosure even after transferring files at full load for 8 hours (as determined using CrystalDiskInfo). There is so little vibration it is actually impressive.

One thing to keep in mind though is that this drive only spins at 5900 RPM. Would get better speeds if it spun at the full 7200 RPM, but again, my primary concern wasn't for mega speed. This is my master drive that I store all of my files on, so I am more concerned with longevity than anything. So far, it has done a really good job.

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Big Hydro

Perfect for HOME NAS applications!!! VERY affordable.

Reviewed in the United States on February 16, 2014

Capacity: 2TBStyle: Standard DriveVerified Purchase

This hard drive is perfect for home NAS or raid storage applications. Most people don't know that you cannot use just a desktop hard drive for any type of NAS or raid storage. They do not have firmware that supports thos type of uses and your data is at serious risk of being lost. Seagate has found that in this day there is more home users making there own data servers for movies and music and as such has made a hard drive that is inbetween a full enterprise class and desktop class drive. This drive has firmware designed to be used in a NAS or raid setup, constantly on and proper error handling so you don't lose your array. I custom built my own NAS box using a free NAS os system and put these drives in it. VERY affordable. I didn't want to have to spend several hundred per drive to get drives made for raid. This is a must if you want a reliable setup.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

JaGar

Moderately inexpensive but FAST!

Reviewed in the United States on April 8, 2014

Capacity: 2TBStyle: Standard DriveVerified Purchase

I had two WD Green Drives in my Drobo 5N and they worked well albeit a bit slower than I liked. Also I started reading about NAS drives and the special attention to vibrations given them. I started to think my Green drives weren't the best choice. So I bought three of these Seagate NAS drives to replace my to WD Green drives. Figuring I would get peace of mind from having purpose-built drives, I was shocked by the performance improvement. With these three drive I was able to go from single-disk to dual-disk redundancy making my archive that much more secure.

To make my 5N lightning fast I later added a 120GB SSD mSATA SSD to the accelerator bay - wow! Time Machine on my iMac completes almost quicker than the drive take to spin up. Mounting volumes is much zippier. I highly recommend these drives, but I would also consider the WD Red NAS drives as well.

Helpful

Zach

Works as expected

Reviewed in the United States on April 19, 2014

Capacity: 2TBStyle: Standard DriveVerified Purchase

It's difficult to get excited about a hard drive, but this one has delivered as expected. I'm using 2 of these connected to a HighPoint Rocket 640L with Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials to create an ReFS formatted mirrored storage space for our home server. We backup all of our machines to this storage as well as use it as the primary location for all our pictures, music, and videos (~800GB). I was previously using 2 1.5TB WD Green Drives with Windows Home Server. These which worked fine (~4 years) but utilized WD "IntelliPower" variable spindle speed and in our experience, it was noticeably slow when doing things like browsing through pictures. I wasn't overly concerned about speed and performance for my storage, but decided to move back to 7200RPM drives to alleviate the delays. Thus far (~1mos) have been very pleased with it. My primary requirement is reliability and only time will tell.

One person found this helpful

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Ray

Works as an Arris DVR expander perfectly!

Reviewed in the United States on November 14, 2015

Capacity: 2TBStyle: Standard DriveVerified Purchase

I just got it yesterday but I picked this one based on the fact that it's made for 24 hour/day use and one reviewer said he used it to expand his Arris Digital Video Recorder box and this was my exact need as well. I enclosed it in a Hornettek eSata enclosure, hooked up the power and eSata cable and my DVR system recognized it in a few seconds. It then asked me to format it, which I did. After it was finished, it immediately made my full percentage go from 80% down to 14%. I'm impressed with the ease of setting up this device and as long as it works for a few years, I'll be more than pleased with my purchase!

Helpful

Erik

Work far better than competitors. Months/years of use in 10TB Raid5 Server.

Reviewed in the United States on June 23, 2016

Capacity: 2TBStyle: Standard DriveVerified Purchase

These drives are great, and After going through countless WD hard drives, I now have a trust in seagate.

I run a 10TB NAS on RAID5 server at home, and it is stocked with these drives now after converting from POS WD drives which failed within 2 years of purchase. This was the last of several purchased over months time, and they are all running great without issue. I use applications to monitor the health of the hard drives on nearly a daily basis and can tell you these are built like tanks and I can trust my data to them.

Of course, you never trust anything 100% so that is why I run RAID5.

Helpful

Olde Sidekick

Excellent disk drive

Reviewed in the United States on February 27, 2014

Capacity: 2TBStyle: Standard DriveVerified Purchase

Installed 3 of these in an HP microserver running Windows Home Server 2011. These drives are one step up from the usual (cheap) retail drives and one step below expensive enterprise-class drives. Good compromise. Very low vibration, almost no sound, fast. (Not sure I believe the 1 mil hours MTBF however...) I used DrivePool software to create a single 6T disk instance (file duplication without RAID); works fine. I recommend both the drive and the software. Although Seagate markets these for NAS (because ordinary retail desktop drives do not contain the firmware needed for NAS systems), this also is a good choice for ordinary desktop applications where longer-life and low sound is needed -- I suggested spending the extra $20 or so instead of buying the usual less-expensive desktop drive...

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