Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5TB Stability
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dznutz
New Member
i'm using one. so far so good
as for the firmware issue... yes that's true. however, if you purchase the drive at a place with a lot of movement like newegg then you'll get an updated drive that may not need a firmware update.
as for my drive.... i was given an option for a firmware upgrade but the update wasn't critical. however, when i inquired about my 1tb drive there was no firmware update needed. so in terms of overall stability the 1.5 isn't as stable as their 1tb drives. but as i said earlier i have no problems thus far.
as for the firmware issue... yes that's true. however, if you purchase the drive at a place with a lot of movement like newegg then you'll get an updated drive that may not need a firmware update.
as for my drive.... i was given an option for a firmware upgrade but the update wasn't critical. however, when i inquired about my 1tb drive there was no firmware update needed. so in terms of overall stability the 1.5 isn't as stable as their 1tb drives. but as i said earlier i have no problems thus far.
Cleric7x9
Active Member
http://techreport.com/discussions.x/15863
http://www.dailytech.com/Update+Sea...Bricks+Barracuda+720011+HDDs/article14011.htm
i certainly wouldnt trust 1.5gb of valuable data until it gets sorted out, but i guess APJ would. idk, just my opinion.
http://www.dailytech.com/Update+Sea...Bricks+Barracuda+720011+HDDs/article14011.htm
i certainly wouldnt trust 1.5gb of valuable data until it gets sorted out, but i guess APJ would. idk, just my opinion.
lawson_jl
New Member
The issue is that as drive capacities get larger the aerial density also gets larger. Which means that so does the number of error on the drive. This is simple physics the closer the data is packed on the drive the more likely read/write errors are to occour. Check the SMART data Error correcting can only fix so much and it's starting to show. It may be best to stay away from 1.5TB and the upcoming larger drives in favor of smaller drivers.
The current issue with the Seagate 7200.11 drives is related to the version of the firmware that is in the drive, not to RAID. Also affected by this issue are some Maxtor drives and some Seagate ES.2 (enterprise) drives.
If you have one of the affected drives and the firmware has been upgraded then you should be good to go. That said if I owned one of the drives I'd upgrade the firmware now and also come back in a month and check if another new firware version was offered. If so upgrade the firmware again. The first firmware fix had big problems, but so far the second fix version looks like it's good.
IF YOU HAVE THE OLD FIRMWARE then each time one of those drives is powered on there is a one in 50,000 shot that the drive will nuke itself. All the data is still there on the drive and can be gotten back by flashing the firmware. Without the firmware flash the dead drives simply will not respond to a drive controller. They are bricked (temporarily). See the link below.
I have problems reading Slashdot unless I use the Firefox browser ...
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1098793&cid=26542735
Below is a link to the list of the affected drives.
http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/selfservice/news.jsp?DocId=207931
To find out what your firmware level is you can install and run the tool on the web page below.
http://seatools.seagate.com/
I believe that there is another program also offered by Seagate that will tell you the firmware level, but I can't remember the name of it.
The most troubling thing about the recent Seagate 7200.11 firmware debacle was that the mods in their support forum (forums.seagate.com) were deleting and altering the users posts and even blocking links in private messages to a posting on another board which could help the victims. That sort of behavior REALLY gives the company a black eye ... in spite of the effort on the engineering side to ship only the most reliable of products.
Eventually ALL disk drive companies have a fiasco where they find that they have shipped a lot of bad product or very similarly a lot of product has gotten out that needs a difficult field upgrade. For example: IBM/Hitachi Deathstar, Quantum Bigfoot, etc, etc.
The question is how do you deal with that situation after it has happened.
BTW - It is perfectly normal at Seagate for them to ask you to send them an email containing your particulars (disk model, serial number, firmware level, etc) before they will respond with links/instructions/etc. and "allow" you to upgrade your own firmware. That's how they've always done it in the past. They see that as an effort to protect their customers from blasting themselves in the foot. I believe that this time, for many but not all customers, there are direct links on the Seagate website that customers can use to simply download the new firmware. It's difficult to go the email route when 14 million drives have been shipped that need to be upgraded.
The thing here is that you do NOT want to have to go through a firmware flash if you can at all avoid it. Flashing new drives to the proper firmware level "should be on them" (the folks at the factory). Any time a mobo or disk is flashed there is a chance that it will be done slightly incorrectly or some electrical glitch could happen and then the mobo/disk/etc is bricked in a really nasty way and you're going to have to pay a lot of money to get it unbricked.
Pretty much all drives in the channel (if on the "list of the affected drives" link above) at this point will need the firmware upgrade.
I recommend only buying one of those drives if you can be sure that the firmware is already at the correct level ... and then check the firmware level of the drive once you've installed it.
One other point ... only Seagate drives that are directly connected to a SATA controller can have their firmware examined or flashed. If your drive is in a USB or Firewire external enclosure then no dice. That probably does not apply to eSATA hookups, but I'm not sure.
If you have one of the affected drives and the firmware has been upgraded then you should be good to go. That said if I owned one of the drives I'd upgrade the firmware now and also come back in a month and check if another new firware version was offered. If so upgrade the firmware again. The first firmware fix had big problems, but so far the second fix version looks like it's good.
IF YOU HAVE THE OLD FIRMWARE then each time one of those drives is powered on there is a one in 50,000 shot that the drive will nuke itself. All the data is still there on the drive and can be gotten back by flashing the firmware. Without the firmware flash the dead drives simply will not respond to a drive controller. They are bricked (temporarily). See the link below.
I have problems reading Slashdot unless I use the Firefox browser ...
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1098793&cid=26542735
Below is a link to the list of the affected drives.
http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/selfservice/news.jsp?DocId=207931
To find out what your firmware level is you can install and run the tool on the web page below.
http://seatools.seagate.com/
I believe that there is another program also offered by Seagate that will tell you the firmware level, but I can't remember the name of it.
The most troubling thing about the recent Seagate 7200.11 firmware debacle was that the mods in their support forum (forums.seagate.com) were deleting and altering the users posts and even blocking links in private messages to a posting on another board which could help the victims. That sort of behavior REALLY gives the company a black eye ... in spite of the effort on the engineering side to ship only the most reliable of products.
Eventually ALL disk drive companies have a fiasco where they find that they have shipped a lot of bad product or very similarly a lot of product has gotten out that needs a difficult field upgrade. For example: IBM/Hitachi Deathstar, Quantum Bigfoot, etc, etc.
The question is how do you deal with that situation after it has happened.
BTW - It is perfectly normal at Seagate for them to ask you to send them an email containing your particulars (disk model, serial number, firmware level, etc) before they will respond with links/instructions/etc. and "allow" you to upgrade your own firmware. That's how they've always done it in the past. They see that as an effort to protect their customers from blasting themselves in the foot. I believe that this time, for many but not all customers, there are direct links on the Seagate website that customers can use to simply download the new firmware. It's difficult to go the email route when 14 million drives have been shipped that need to be upgraded.
The thing here is that you do NOT want to have to go through a firmware flash if you can at all avoid it. Flashing new drives to the proper firmware level "should be on them" (the folks at the factory). Any time a mobo or disk is flashed there is a chance that it will be done slightly incorrectly or some electrical glitch could happen and then the mobo/disk/etc is bricked in a really nasty way and you're going to have to pay a lot of money to get it unbricked.
Pretty much all drives in the channel (if on the "list of the affected drives" link above) at this point will need the firmware upgrade.
I recommend only buying one of those drives if you can be sure that the firmware is already at the correct level ... and then check the firmware level of the drive once you've installed it.
One other point ... only Seagate drives that are directly connected to a SATA controller can have their firmware examined or flashed. If your drive is in a USB or Firewire external enclosure then no dice. That probably does not apply to eSATA hookups, but I'm not sure.
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dont buy
I'm on my second 1.5 TB hard drive in a month not one lasted over 24 hours
first one never really worked did not last long enough to complete one installation of windows vista
second one worked like a dream for about 6 to 10 hours and it arrived this week so it should already have the update
I'm on my second 1.5 TB hard drive in a month not one lasted over 24 hours
first one never really worked did not last long enough to complete one installation of windows vista
second one worked like a dream for about 6 to 10 hours and it arrived this week so it should already have the update
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I'm with Lawson on this issue. In my experience, last year's technology is a good bet. It seems like yesterday we were building systems with 80mb hard drives. In those days there were 250mb drives but we were always leery of them. Now we talk about GB instead of MB but the same thing holds true. While technology has advanced, the cutting edge of it has always been the bleeding edge of it.
Personally, I try to use 500GB drives if possible. They are really reliable just like those old 80mb drives were 15 years ago. The 750GB are OK too. The 1 TB drives are not nearly as reliable and I warn customers of that fact. I won't install a 1.5 TB. Simply won't do it. No need to subject myself to the warranty risk. I'm sure I will in a year or two but not yet.
If you need 1.5 TB then use a pair of 750's. The cutting edge is still bleeding-always has and always will.
Personally, I try to use 500GB drives if possible. They are really reliable just like those old 80mb drives were 15 years ago. The 750GB are OK too. The 1 TB drives are not nearly as reliable and I warn customers of that fact. I won't install a 1.5 TB. Simply won't do it. No need to subject myself to the warranty risk. I'm sure I will in a year or two but not yet.
If you need 1.5 TB then use a pair of 750's. The cutting edge is still bleeding-always has and always will.