PDA

View Full Version : Lawsuit over Seagate's 'misled on storage capacity'


Gur00
01-09-2008, 03:58 PM
I found this article posted and thought I'd share, post your opinions.


Lawsuit over Seagate's 'misled on storage capacity'



Seagate 'misled on storage capacity'
Wednesday Oct 31 17:23 AEDT

Computer companies are on notice after the world's largest hard drive manufacturer, Seagate, reached an out of court settlement, after claims it had misled consumers regarding storage capacity.

The class action, filed in a California court, claimed Seagate wrongly defined one kilobyte as one thousand bytes, not 1,024 bytes, which is regarded as the industry standard.

This results in a hard drive labelled as 1GB, actually being 73,741,824 bytes, almost 70MB, short of the mark.

READ BELOW

As compensation to its customers, Seagate is offering US customers a five
per cent refund on drives bought during the last six years or free backup
software. The compensation does not apply to customers outside of
the US.

Is that clear enough for all!!!!



"Seagate is pleased to have reached a settlement of the litigation," Seagate spokesperson Woody Monroy said.

"Seagate believes that its advertising and other business practices were, and are proper in all respects. However, because of the expense and burden of litigation, Seagate believes that resolving the matter through settlement is in the best interests of Seagate and its customers."

Under the terms of the settlement, Seagate will label its products with disclosures regarding the storage capacity of its hard drives, and will pay court costs of $US1.75 million ($A1.91 million).

In 2003, a group of users began a class action against Apple, Dell, Gateway, HP, IBM, Sharp, Sony and Toshiba, which has not yet been resolved.

A similar case against flash memory card makers SanDisk and Kingston is also in the courts.

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=312823
İAAP 2007


Peter Judge ZDNet.co.uk
Published: 26 Oct 2007 13:53 BST

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.

To claim a refund, buyers have to fill in a form quoting their product's serial number. If they wish to claim the software, they have to use a different online form.

The lawsuit is the latest in a series of similar cases involving the definition of a gigabyte. In 2003, Apple, Dell, Gateway, HP, IBM, Sharp, Sony and Toshiba were sued over hard-disk sizes by a group of users. That case has not yet been resolved.

A suit against Amazon.com over the capacity of an MP3 player bought on the site was also filed in 2003, but was dismissed in 2005.

All the major flash memory card makers, including SanDisk and Kingston, were sued in 2004, but there has been no result in that case yet.

Another hard-disk giant, Western Digital, settled a similar suit in 2005, but it escaped having to pay refunds. The company offered a free download of backup software valued at $30 (£15) and paid half a million dollars in legal fees, while denying liability.

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/0,1000000091,39290393,00.htm*****1
ZDNet.co.uk


I hope all you US members claim your bits back.
Byte them on the Ass.
X-(

Get the BASTARDS!

Gur00
01-09-2008, 04:06 PM
Come on Rest of World let's make Seagate pay us too!

I WANT MY 5%
X-(

lipripr
01-09-2008, 08:33 PM
I'll get mine... thx!

Baz
01-09-2008, 09:24 PM
How do i find out if mines a seagate?

wells11
01-09-2008, 11:39 PM
ya get them bastards

Hazzard
01-09-2008, 11:45 PM
go into my computer, right click on C or whatever your hard drive is select properties then hardware it will say next to the drive who made it.

Chas
01-10-2008, 08:19 PM
How do i find out if mines a seagate?

It'll say "Seagate" across the top :D

nomad8u
01-11-2008, 04:15 PM
How do i find out if mines a seagate?

If you just ran out of space on drive c: cause you had less storage than you thought..... it's a Seagate. :))

Speedy63
01-11-2008, 04:36 PM
I know not to buy a seagate drive in England then, thanx for this info Gur00

Gur00
01-12-2008, 06:28 AM
Seagate are just the poor saps who happened to get sued.
It all boils down to they are meant to be GIBIBYTE when what we are getting is in fact GIGABYTE
See aritcle here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibibyte
Someone along the way messed up the correct terminolgy, and now we are stuck with the outcome.
What we all think a MEGABYTE and a GIGABYTE to really be ie. a factor of 1024,is in fact a MEBIBYTE/ GIBIBYTE, a true MEGABYTE/ GIGABYTE is a measure of 1000.
I thought the other way, now I understand.
I think!
FREAKIN' GEEKS and their TERMINOLGIES.

I actually have a mixture of WD, SEAGATE and MAXTOR. I prefer a SEAGATE any day.

Gismo
01-12-2008, 06:34 AM
well us here in Australia wont get much back then 5% in dollars maybe $2 http://s31.photobucket.com/albums/c351/tadpole14/Badboys-Aftermath/badboys2/th_LMMFAO.gif