Seagate Firmware Update Bricking 500GB HDDs

HardOCP ^ | Wednesday January 21, 2009 | Steve

[TChris]

That's interesting. I've never had a problem with any of my Thinkpad (Hitachi) drives. In fact, my T30, I've dropped twice, while it was running! Damn thing didn't skip a beat or drop a bit.

Of course, individual units from any manufacturer may be fine. I was just relating my overall experience with hundreds of different machines over many years.

I still pick WD for every computer I build. A dead WD hard drive is a very rare thing for me.

[antiRepublicrat]

The CEO’s pay, last reported at $1,000,002 a year, will be cut by 25 percent, as will those of executive vice presidents and executive officers. Senior vice presidents will take a 20 percent cut, vice presidents a 15 percent cut

Good to see upper management is joining in the pain, and to a greater degree than the lower employees. Even with the pay cuts that should engender some loyalty from the employees until Seagate can pull itself up. I'd be looking for another job if they lowered my pay and kept up exec pay (or as happens, give them bonuses).

[tacticalogic]

It’s not quite as bad as Micropolis actually shipping bricks.

[tacticalogic]

Correction: It was Miniscribe that shipped bricks.

[Born Conservative]

I had been buying Maxtor drives for the past few years after a bad WD drive (maybe isolated incident?).

Anyway, just did a build for my son and put in a WD; so far, so good. I’ll most likely stick with WD, since I haven’t heard many positives on Seagate.

[Justa]

Thanks for the thread. However, the ST3500320AS (SATA II) are 7200.11 series which are now superseded by the 7200.12 series which should be an improvement. Unfortunately, I have 4 7200.11 drives in my computer. Hopefully, I can get a replacement if one goes down before another one in the array dies.

From what I can tell in the forums the old firmware is causing issues and the new firmware bricks it immediately. Most people don't upgrade firmware so it shouldn't apply to them. Oh, yeah, people should only upgrade hard drive firmware to all drives in an array and must re-initialize their drives or arrays. Never upgrade firmware on an existing system with the expectation it will be usable afterwards!

I've managed 100s of servers, almost all with Seagate SCSI and a few with SATA II drives and have been impressed with Seagate's reliability. I suppose with the downturn there's gonna be a shakeout in more than one manufacturer. Look for product development to go from tech to cost cutting, like more composite materials and shorter, less comprehensive warranties. Another Recession Redux -for those of us who remember the '70s.

[TChris]

They DO make a very good SCSI drive. I'll give 'em that. Replaced lots of IBM units there.

I have no experience with SAS or SATA in servers to go on yet...

[Justa]

After reading the comments here on the WDs and doing some reading I'm gonna give 'em a shot again, probably their Caviar Black series SATA IIs. I remember the mid-90s when it was WD + ASUS for the most reliable desktop.

Who knows why the Seagate CEO was canned? If it was for the 7200.11 fiasco that'd be a good indicator. Best I can make from their managment moves is they're a well-run (disciplined) company. The 7200.11 episode indicates someone was asleep at the helm; so it makes sense in that respect.