(Column) - I never thought I would see the day when a hard drive manufacturer would go from indifferent to outright stupid all with one drive release. Apparently, it has happened. It seems that Seagate has opted to forgo compatibility for anyone other than Linux users and that’s a real shame, as I have always been a satisfied Seagate user. And as you might suspect, based on where this article is appearing, I happen to be a full-time Linux user.
Sending A Very Strong Message. I don't really understand what Seagate expects to do here, other than a flurry of negative articles like this one about their otherwise good products. It's a shame, yet Seagate has made their bed, now they will have to deal with the consequences of their choices
Luckily for those of you who purchased one of these drives in good faith, there are workarounds to make them Linux compatible. While this may not really be an issue for Mac owners, I suspect this is going to really cheese off a lot of Linux enthusiasts. Personally, seeing this "Windows-only" behavior tells me that Seagate is no longer interested in our business.
Overreacting? Some people have asked if all of us are perhaps overreacting to the situation. These same people have brought up the otherwise valid point that for the most part, companies like Western Digital will be able to more than pick up the slack
So yes, the market will eventually take care of this and those of you who are fine with Seagate's narrow-minded vision will use those products, while we take another path entirely. But it does not excuse the painfully obvious cue from Microsoft that the drives in question have apparently been preformatted as NTFS. Again, Seagate has made their views loud and clear as far as I’m concerned.
Even more comical is the official stance that states that despite workarounds mentioned previously, the company has zero intention to support any of them even in the name of customer service.
Welcome Back, Western Digital! I never thought I would see the day when hard drives were added to the Linux compatibility list of works or needed a workaround. But it seems that Seagate has made history there. Way to go guys, too bad we Linux users, being geeks, likely make up more hard drive sales than you likely figured into this boneheaded maneuver.
As the headlines are filling up with Seagate's recent acquisition of metalincs, it's a shame to see the vendor now having to narrow their business to one spectrum while expanding it on another.