RMA Never Felt So Good

[Aldryic C'boas]

If you've been with us more than a few months, you no doubt remember the repeated nightmares we went through with the repeatedly failing Seagate drives in our original Las Vegas Storage nodes.  After Fran went to Vegas to do all of the hardware upgrades, these horrible Seagates were packed up and sent my way to be.. repurposed in a manner most fitting with their quality.

TO THE RANGE.

I'm still waiting on parts for my Мосина, so I haven't had a chance to put any high-powered 54R rounds through the drives yet.  But, still plenty left, so that'll be next time.  Today's contender was my 7.62x39 Вепр, based on the old RPK platform, and my Ruger P89 (not pictured).  3x Seagate Drives, and 2x Intermec HHCs (which I didn't take post-trauma shots of, but I'll catch some more of those next time).

So first up, two drives were subjected to 7.62 fire, at 200yds to 'give them a sporting chance'.

And no, I didn't burn all of that ammo on these drives - also did a progressive sighting of that new scope (which @MannDude should recognize >_>) out to 800yds, and worked out some aggression on those two Intermec devices.

Next up was moving down to the pistol range, and the third drive.  115 grain FMJ 9mm rounds at 25yds:

Honestly did more damage than I was expecting.  The first two shots actually didn't penetrate at all, so I was a bit surprised when the HDD's casing finally gave in.

I still have a box full of drives left - once I have my Мосина re-assembled I'll bring a couple more drives out with me and post those results as well.  Buddy of mine has a 30-30 he's willing to contribute to the cause, and we may look at picking up some 12 and 20 gauge slug shot as well.

 

[k0nsl]

Warms my heart to see this.

 

[Robert]

Seagate drives deserve nothing less.

 

[telephone]

If only there was a "special" on the best ways to destroy hard drives. You know, MythBuster style with over the top explosions and slow motion cameras  opcorn:

 

[GIANT_CRAB]

Try a 360noscope stunt.

 

[rds100]

What kind of drives were these? What was the failure rate? Our experience with Seagate is not that bad.

 

[ChrisM]

In my opinion this method of disposal was too honorable for the likes of Seagate.. 

Their Engineers on the other hand....  ^_^

 

[Francisco]

What kind of drives were these? What was the failure rate? Our experience with Seagate is not that bad.

ST2000DM001.

It's a shame, we actually have storage01 that was made up with these drives back from San Jose and we've had only a couple drives go bad in that time. I get the feeling that they used a lot of parts they 'recovered' from the floods that were happening around that time to fill these orders. This whole product line of drives, including the 3TB's, have major failure rates (~50% is what backblaze was seeing) and Seagate even chopped the warranty to just 1 year.

Now, 'bad' means that it has offline uncorrectables, a ton of reallocates, or when you run SMART it craps out a ton of 'error at power-on time...'.

We kept the other half of the drives since they had 0 of the above, reported fully w/o issue, & had 2 years on the clock without any problems. At this point they're burned in, been written from start/finish from rebuilds/etc. We'll be putting 40 of them up for sale in a few days for probably $45/ea.

Francisco

 

[MannDude]

 

[raindog308]

WAIT!  I need a restore!

 

[Aldryic C'boas]

Still have a number of drives left, so subjected them to something that hits a bit harder:

91/30 Мосина, fires 7,62x54r ammunition.  For you американцы, it's a little bigger than the 308 Winchester.  Placed 3 of the Seagates at 200 yards, and the results:

Honestly, not as much trauma as I was expecting.  Primarily because, the 54r round is an incredibly effective penetrative round.  There's a saying: "7,62x54r - Because some times the bad guys hide behind things.".  And it's completely true.

First drive:

Most of the rounds passed clean through.  Interestingly enough, I did learn that if you stack a few of these drives and then hit them with 54r, they will catch fire, which is the large 'crater' and burn marks you see on the front of the drive.  This one was at the 'end of the line' when I stacked them all together.

Drive two:

Other than the really odd angle of impact, nothing all that impressive.

Drive three:

Loved the gaping hole in the side of this one.

Original plan was to put quite a few more rounds through these.. but after seeing just how easily the rounds passed through with minimal expansion on the exit side, it wasn't really worth burning more 54r on them.  Still, was pretty damn cool to see them go flying after being hit.

Next couple of trials will be with a 30-30 Winchester, and maybe some 12 and 20 gauge slugs as well.  Just for giggles.

 

[MannDude]

Looks like you had a (wait for it....) blast.

One drive 2, was the drive positioned at an angle? Curious how that entry/exit was achieved or if the round tumbled in the air and hit it at an odd angle. Sometimes they'll tumble and hit targets sideways for one reason or another.

And drive 3, may it RIP. Poor guy never had a chance.

 

[Aldryic C'boas]

One drive 2, was the drive positioned at an angle? Curious how that entry/exit was achieved or if the round tumbled in the air and hit it at an odd angle. Sometimes they'll tumble and hit targets sideways for one reason or another.

At a slight angle... but in the wrong direction for the entry angle.  I'm honestly not sure what the hell happened there.  The drives were just leaned against posts, not secured down or anything - so my best guess is it hit at just the right angle to knock over the drive during impact, resulting in the funky entry.  I was also shooting iron sights, at a pretty small target that was resting in the ground, partially obscured in grass.  Very possible that I aimed a bit low, and that was the result of a ricochet after hitting the ground first.

 

[HalfEatenPie]

Most of the rounds passed clean through.  Interestingly enough, I did learn that if you stack a few of these drives and then hit them with 54r, they will catch fire, which is the large 'crater' and burn marks you see on the front of the drive.  

lol. 

That sounds like a design flaw.  "Hey if we stack two hard drives together and puncture them, the may or may not catch on fire."

Man these pictures are absolutely beautiful.  Fantastic guns by the way!  That's a gun that uses an actual clip too!  haha. 

We used to have two AR-15s, an XDS, and a 1911.  Never shot at hard drives but the watermelons never stood a chance

Seriously though.  Beautiful guns!  

 

[Aldryic C'boas]

Well, I still have about a dozen and a half or so drives left.  Maybe I can talk the boss into funding some... ordinance supplies for extended testing :3  Actually... bingo.  Next test will be placing some drives in a box with a 95/5 mix of ammonia nitrate and aluminum powder, and seeing how they fare.

Would absolutely love to see what a Ruger Redhawk chambered in 454 Casull would do >_>

 

[MannDude]

Well, I still have about a dozen and a half or so drives left.  Maybe I can talk the boss into funding some... ordinance supplies for extended testing :3  Actually... bingo.  Next test will be placing some drives in a box with a 95/5 mix of ammonia nitrate and aluminum powder, and seeing how they fare.

Would absolutely love to see what a Ruger Redhawk chambered in 454 Casull would do >_>

We'll need video.

I may actually head to a buddy's place tomorrow to go shooting, though have no hardware I need to dispose of. I do have half a dozen or so 'dead' drives... but I should really try to recover the data from them first... Though coconuts and melons make just as good targets with instant satisfaction and confirmation of a hit.

For the curious, feel free to stumble through vpsBoard's Gun Thread here:

 

[tmzVPS-Daniel]

Any video of all of this? 

- Daniel

 

[drmike]

We'll need video.

Ald sharpshooting hardware and a video... The anti-BuyVM people then would have a reason to really fear Ald.

 

[MannDude]

Ald sharpshooting hardware and a video... The anti-BuyVM people then would have a reason to really fear Ald.

He'll terminate a spammer's service from a long range.

 

[Aldryic C'boas]

Any video of all of this? 

- Daniel

I don't have anything fancy (just my phone), and I can't really ask someone to stand next to the drives while I take shots at them >_>  But next time I bring some out, I'll see what I can do.  If those super-fast cameras that give ridiculous FPS weren't so expensive, I'd definitely look into grabbing one to record with.