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The class action suit does offer the example of a plaintiff who purchased a drive, experienced an early failure, and then replaced it again with a warrantied drive that also failed. It also leans on the Backblaze information on the ST3000DM001 to support allegations that the drive family was broken. This argument will hinge on whether Backblaze's use of the drives in a commercial storage pod constitutes a proper environment for representative testing. I suspect Seagate will argue it does not. Seagate manufactures enterprise-class drives that are specifically designed for reliable operations in
Seagate faces class-action lawsuit over 3TB hard drive failure rates… Here's Backblaze's hard drive failure stats through Q1 2016: The discrepancy between the 61,590 drives Backblaze deploys and the 61,523 drives listed in this chart is that the company doesn't show data unless it has at least 45 drives. …
… Backblaze doesn't come right out and say it, but the implication is that this direct wire method proved to be a great deal of trouble. …
… The Seagate drives in Backblaze's storage pods did not exhibit this type of curve. Backblaze 3TB failure data as of 2015 As of April 2015, just 6% of the original 3TB drives Backblaze purchased were still in service. …
… An off-site copy can include automated, encrypted nightly syncing to cold storage such as Backblaze B2, Hetzner Storage Box, or an off-site NAS at a different location, such as a family member's house. …