Own a Seagate hard drive? Get a refund!

[giza]

Seagate pays out over gigabyte definition

Seagate Technology, the world's largest hard-drive maker, is offering customers a five percent refund on drives bought during the last six years following a lawsuit over the definition of a "gigabyte". As an alternative, customers can choose to receive free backup software.

Four people sued the company, saying they expected its drives to offer greater capacity than that actually provided. Seagate manufactures its drives based on powers of ten, with 1KB equalling 1,000 bytes. The claimants argued that 1KB of storage should compromise 1,024 bytes.

On a 1GB drive, this would make the difference between one billion bytes of storage, and 1,073,741,824 bytes. Other manufacturers, such as Samsung and Hitachi, also measure hard-drive capacity with 1KB equalling 1,000 bytes, whereas all operating systems are based on 1KB equalling 1,024 bytes.

Because the lawsuit is a "class action", the settlement is available to all Seagate customers.

Seagate denies any fault, but it has offered to pay the refund for any drive which was bought between 22 March, 2001 and 26 September, 2007. The offer is awaiting approval by the presiding judge.

If you own a Sleazegate Seagate hard drive, the form to request your portion of the settlement can be found here.

I know there's arguments for and against each way of defining Kilo/Mega/Gigabytes. It'll be interesting to see what sort of precedent this sets for the industry.

Comments

[unciaa.livejournal.com]

I'm bitterly amused that Seagate has to pay up because operating systems are being retarded.

[unciaa.livejournal.com]

Plus, it's not like this hadn't been addressed years ago. But hey, suing HD manufacturers is easier.

[giza.livejournal.com]

I made this post with you in mind. I figured that you'd have been all over it. :-)

Round One: Fight!

[triggur.livejournal.com]

People may not like Seagate, but I'm sorry, that's a _lame_ lawsuit.

[kellic.livejournal.com]

I could get two refunds. I could. But I won't because unlike others who initiated this I'm not a retard and I know WHY an OS differs with what is on the box. I guess I personally feel I'm not eligible for this refund because I have a clue.
I actually like Seagate. I think they make some of, if not THE best hard drives in the industry and will continue to support them no matter what retarded lawsuits are brought against them.

[thrashbear.livejournal.com]

"I personally feel I'm not eligible for this refund because I have a clue"

How DARE you exercise personal responsibility and common sense! How un-American!

[tailen.livejournal.com]

The settlement is only valid for people who have bought a hard disk in the United States :P

[wildbilltx.livejournal.com]

I wish it was Western Digital, they screwed me over a few years ago when a 100g hard drive I had for only a year started clicking and dying on me. I sent it to them on warranty (via UPS) for a replacement and I never got one back. They said they never got it while I have proof from UPS they did.

[wildw0lf.livejournal.com]

All you had to do was prove they received it. From there, they should have either sent you a drive.

[wildw0lf.livejournal.com]

This has been a known practice for years, and on a lot of drives, they really state that the capacity is calculated a different way. I have to explain that to some clients when they call. I dom't understand why they are being sued, when it's industry practice. If that's the case, then they all should be sued...