Email Seagate Class Action Suit

[03GrandAmGT]

Has anyone else that bought Seagate drives get an email regarding a Class action suit against Seagate. The letter I received is below, I know that there has been some talk going on regarding the drives going dead after awhile, but this seems to be an issue regarding size of drive.

http://www.harddrive-settlement.com/contact.htm

This is a further notice relating to a proposed class action settlement. The settlement was previously approved, but the court has required additional notice to members of the settlement class to clarify the class definition. There's more to the letter but I'll post the link. Seems a bit odd for bringing a class action suit for only a 7% increase of the overall drive size. Could this be just one of those scams to get the lawyers pockets rich.

If you purchased a Seagate brand hard disc drive between March 22, 2001 and September 26, 2007, a proposed class action settlement may affect you. Another hearing has been scheduled in San Francisco Superior Court to determine whether the settlement should be approved. Under the settlement, you may have the right to make a claim for cash or software. If you previously made a claim, you need not take any further action unless you wish to make claims on additional hard drives. Your prior claim or claims will be processed after the settlement is approved. You may not make a new claim for any hard drive included in a prior claim. You also may choose to exclude yourself from the settlement. If you previously excluded yourself, you will remain excluded, unless you revoke your exclusion. If you do not exclude yourself, you may file written objections to the settlement and appear (or have your own attorney appear) at the court hearing. If the settlement is approved and you do not exclude yourself, you give up the right to sue for the claims the settlement resolves, and you will be bound by the terms of the settlement. To learn more about or exercise any of your rights, please read below and visit www.harddrive-settlement.com.

The lawsuit is Cho v. Seagate Technology (US) Holdings, Inc., San Francisco Superior Court, Case No. 453195. In the suit, the plaintiff alleges that in the sale and marketing of hard disc drives, Seagate stated that purchasers of the drives would receive approximately 7% more usable storage capacity than they actually received. Seagate has denied and continues to deny each and all of plaintiff's claims, and denies that anyone has been harmed or deserves compensation. The Court has not made a decision on the merits.

jd

[jaclaz]

This is an OLD, ALREADY settled Class Action Suit.

This is about misrepresentation of hard disk capacity, in a nutshell:

http://www.engadget.com/2007/10/22/details-on-proposed-seagate-class-action-settlement-revealed/

The full notice is here:

http://www.harddrive-settlement.com/notice.htm

You have time - should you have actually bought a Seagate drive in the US between March 22, 2001 and September 26, 2007 - to make a claim before July 9, 2010 or, if you ALREADY made a claim and wish to be EXCLUDED , you can say so before May 14, 2010.

The series of Seagate affected by the "bricking" problem, the 7200.11, has been manufactured starting from around august 2007, or at least that's the older maufacture date I could find here:

with first purchase date in December 2007.

Just for the record, Western Digital has settled a similar lawsuit:

http://www.crn.com/it-channel/189602434;jsessionid=KYPUDXYVJLSFBQE1GHPCKH4ATMY32JVN

born from the same misrepresentation (using, in order to falsely claim a bigger capacity of the Hard Disks, the capacity unit "SI Gb" equivalent to "IEC GiB" instead of the commonly used in computer "Binary Gb" ):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibibyte

jaclaz

Edited March 14, 2010 by jaclaz

[03GrandAmGT]

Thanks jaclaz. Didn't realize it was that old of a subject, as I just got the email last night I do remember the (Bricking) issue as I had just bought several 500 gig drives of that series, and was watching the forums intensely as I was moving everything over to our family storage system onto them. Sure I had backups of approx. 4 TB worth of DL DVD's. I started buying the Seagate's as I had been a Maxtor buyer for a long time (Amiga 1000) (SCSI)and still have the drive and system that still works today.

Thanks Again

jd