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Issue with Seagate 1.5TB?
- Thread starter filman408
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I'll try it tonight....
and report back
As promised....
I disabled journaling on a pair of striped 1.5s (using davidwsica's tip) and I haven't had another "pause" with iTunes or my roku 500.
aTV testing is next (hopefully this weekend, in between leaf cleanup)
I purchased this drive to use as a time machine backup not realizing all the bad reviews floating around. Does anyone know if journaling is required for time machine to operate properly? If journaling is required I'm hesitant to keep the drive given the problems everyone is having.
I haven't noticed any stalling so far using time machine with HFS+Journaled, just backed up my 60gb boot disk.
I haven't noticed any stalling so far using time machine with HFS+Journaled, just backed up my 60gb boot disk.
As far as I'm aware (from my personal experience, and from what I've read on various forums) you shouldn't notice any problems if you're not using the drive for playing music or video. Even if it does freeze during a Time Machine backup you probably will not notice, and 15-20 seconds later it should resume as normal. Presumably because OS X is multithreaded, it doesn't cause the whole system to hang, it just temporarily causes the application that's accessing the drive to freeze. So far nobody has found any problems with data corruption, and the S.M.A.R.T. status is verified.
I'm not totally up to speed with Journaling, but I gather that it helps maintain data integrity, so for a backup drive you presumably really are far better off keeping the Journaling switched on. I think that Journaling helps if the system crashes, or if you get a sudden power outage - it helps to avoid data corruption in these circumstances (or at least that's what I assume it's for!).
I guess you could argue that you shouldn't be using a drive with known issues for backups at all - but from current information provided the drive isn't in a Raid (including use in the Drobo) then it seems as though the data should be 'safe' if you keep Journaling on.
Speak for yourself. That's not even close to all the data I have, I just don't care to copy a lot of them over to redundant storage.
Also, 1.5tb as a boot disk would be suicidal if that hard drive ever failed and you didn't back up.
Anyway, I found this thread after I found out on twitter that Drobo is not supporting 1.5tb Seagate drives right now(http://www.drobo.com/Support/Index.html). Curious as to what the reason is
Journaling or Journal on MacOSX is a feature used to help OSX keep track of all your files and content or.. if you used the "help"
I'd get an external backup of some sort, at least until Seagate sorts this mess out. (it's not a bad idea anyways)
Yes, thanks for confirming I was right.
Interesting that 'Help' does actually have some useful information - I've given up looking after being unable to find anything useful so many times in the past!
The problems persist and Seagate says that they expect a user-installable firmware update within "a couple of days." Yeah RIGHT. I trust that company now about as far as I could throw them. I paid a $120 restocking fee at newegg because these stupid drives kept failing.
Source: (longest thread in that forum's history!) http://forums.seagate.com/stx/board...&view=by_date_ascending&message.id=3038#M3038
I should also mention that that Seagate forum is HEAVILY moderated and the moderators routinely extract, change, and disavow knowledge of anything they deem the slightest bit contrary to their official party line. Typical...
My advice? Don't buy these drives.
Source: (longest thread in that forum's history!) http://forums.seagate.com/stx/board...&view=by_date_ascending&message.id=3038#M3038
I should also mention that that Seagate forum is HEAVILY moderated and the moderators routinely extract, change, and disavow knowledge of anything they deem the slightest bit contrary to their official party line. Typical...
My advice? Don't buy these drives.
Yeh I am falling foul of the MODS - they are (and I hate to say this) forum-nazis
But some users are just starting to say they have been given the firmware link from seagate... x fingers
But some users are just starting to say they have been given the firmware link from seagate... x fingers
just got off the phone with seagate support. The support rep. said he heard the firmware update should be available by Friday or Monday, and that I would need to contact seagate again by phone to get the firmware link.
This seems on par with what others are hearing.
This seems on par with what others are hearing.
An update would be nice. I just bought a 1.5 GB external from Other World Computing and it hows up on my desktop as two separate drives. I went to OWC's site and found this:
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5TB*
*ATTENTION: The external drive solution purchased contains a Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5TB hard drive mechanism. Due to a problem with Mac OS X and this specific size hard drive mechanism, drive performance is below acceptable levels when the solution is formatted as one single HFS+ 1.5TB volume. To work around this performance issue, we have formatted the storage solution as 2 identical sized HFS+ partitions.
If you are using Windows and NTFS, you may reformat the drive to the full capacity in a single partition with no issues. Windows NTFS does properly support partitions of over 1.0TB on a single physical drive solution. NTFS is not supported by Apple MAC OS without the use of 3rd party software, which is not included.
For Mac or Windows users, the option to initialize using FAT32 with a single partition and to the full capacity also has no performance issues. FAT32 does properly support partitions of over 1.0TB on a single physical drive solution. However, there are some limitations when using FAT32. The FAT32 schema supports files only up to 4.0GB you can not read/write files larger than 4.0GB to a FAT32 volume. Mac Users Only: FAT32 volumes are not supported for booting and also may not be used for Time Machine backup.
We expect this problem to be resolved in the near future, via either a Mac OS software update, or a firmware update to the Oxford chipset in the storage solution. Please check back to this product description page for any update announcements.
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5TB*
*ATTENTION: The external drive solution purchased contains a Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5TB hard drive mechanism. Due to a problem with Mac OS X and this specific size hard drive mechanism, drive performance is below acceptable levels when the solution is formatted as one single HFS+ 1.5TB volume. To work around this performance issue, we have formatted the storage solution as 2 identical sized HFS+ partitions.
If you are using Windows and NTFS, you may reformat the drive to the full capacity in a single partition with no issues. Windows NTFS does properly support partitions of over 1.0TB on a single physical drive solution. NTFS is not supported by Apple MAC OS without the use of 3rd party software, which is not included.
For Mac or Windows users, the option to initialize using FAT32 with a single partition and to the full capacity also has no performance issues. FAT32 does properly support partitions of over 1.0TB on a single physical drive solution. However, there are some limitations when using FAT32. The FAT32 schema supports files only up to 4.0GB you can not read/write files larger than 4.0GB to a FAT32 volume. Mac Users Only: FAT32 volumes are not supported for booting and also may not be used for Time Machine backup.
We expect this problem to be resolved in the near future, via either a Mac OS software update, or a firmware update to the Oxford chipset in the storage solution. Please check back to this product description page for any update announcements.
I just thought I'd post my experiences with Seagate. About 4 weeks ago I reported the problem via email support and I was told I would be informed once firmware was available. In the meantime I've been keeping an eye on a very long thread on the seagate forums. Today a moderator posted that the firmware was now available (in an official statement) which said it would deal with requests promptly.
Just to summarise the problems Seagate have caused during this whole fiasco:
1. Hugely varying responses from Tech Support - ranging from denying the problem exists, to saying they don't support RAID configurations (which mine wasn't), to suggesting formatting the 1.5TB drive at less than 1TB, etc etc
2. They deleted everyone's forum accounts
3. The forums are so buggy, nobody can log in now - it asks for a screen name but anything that is typed gets the response that it must be unique.
4. The post about the firmware gives links to email or chat support - both links lead to pages with 'fatal errors'
5. Chat via other links on the web site got a response that they cannot give out firmware via chat, it can be obtained by phone only
6. Call centre was closed - despite being told it would be open
It's bad enough that Seagate have got themselves a reputation for releasing new models of drive with problematic firmware, but to cause their customers such grief and inconvenience when trying to resolve the issue.
I'm returning mine tomorrow - I have no more patience for dealing with Seagate.
I had a WD My Book Pro fail a couple of years ago - they rapidly shipped me a replacement in advance of me returning the faulty one - yet with Seagate I've read that people have been charged for this (non-refundable). They are a disgrace - and I strongly advise others to stay away from Seagate drives. Hopefully it won't be long before WD release their rumoured 2TB SATA drives.
Just to summarise the problems Seagate have caused during this whole fiasco:
1. Hugely varying responses from Tech Support - ranging from denying the problem exists, to saying they don't support RAID configurations (which mine wasn't), to suggesting formatting the 1.5TB drive at less than 1TB, etc etc
2. They deleted everyone's forum accounts
3. The forums are so buggy, nobody can log in now - it asks for a screen name but anything that is typed gets the response that it must be unique.
4. The post about the firmware gives links to email or chat support - both links lead to pages with 'fatal errors'
5. Chat via other links on the web site got a response that they cannot give out firmware via chat, it can be obtained by phone only
6. Call centre was closed - despite being told it would be open
It's bad enough that Seagate have got themselves a reputation for releasing new models of drive with problematic firmware, but to cause their customers such grief and inconvenience when trying to resolve the issue.
I'm returning mine tomorrow - I have no more patience for dealing with Seagate.
I had a WD My Book Pro fail a couple of years ago - they rapidly shipped me a replacement in advance of me returning the faulty one - yet with Seagate I've read that people have been charged for this (non-refundable). They are a disgrace - and I strongly advise others to stay away from Seagate drives. Hopefully it won't be long before WD release their rumoured 2TB SATA drives.
If you need the Firmware - get on Seagate chat and ask for it - they have released (Just finishing flashing my 5 Lemons)
I am not going to put them in the mac as they are destined for my new Solaris box with RAIDZ. Ill post over the weekend if the problems have indeed been fixed.
(But yes seagate support is approaching that of Creative!) and their mods are pure Evil. Aparently its ok for them to compare an inanimate object as being God-Like, but not for me to put 'omg!' at the end of a sentance (I got Banned).....
shame on Seagate
I am not going to put them in the mac as they are destined for my new Solaris box with RAIDZ. Ill post over the weekend if the problems have indeed been fixed.
(But yes seagate support is approaching that of Creative!) and their mods are pure Evil. Aparently its ok for them to compare an inanimate object as being God-Like, but not for me to put 'omg!' at the end of a sentance (I got Banned).....
shame on Seagate
Firmware and RAID
I flashed the firmware on two of these drives to SD1A and set them up in my Mac Pro as a mirrored RAID 2 days ago. Everything seems to be working fine (knocks wood). Hopefully that fixes the problem!
As an aside, newegg has Hitachi 1 TB drives for $90 shipped after rebate.
I flashed the firmware on two of these drives to SD1A and set them up in my Mac Pro as a mirrored RAID 2 days ago. Everything seems to be working fine (knocks wood). Hopefully that fixes the problem!
As an aside, newegg has Hitachi 1 TB drives for $90 shipped after rebate.
Seagate has had a string of Dog's lately. I have a 1TB drive that died after a few days use. I checked the Newegg forums and I'm not alone.
Seagate was supposed to be the Premier Hard drive company, but it seems like these latest set of products really suck.
I hope they get their act together, I'm going to need new drives for my ReadyNAS soon.
Seagate was supposed to be the Premier Hard drive company, but it seems like these latest set of products really suck.
I hope they get their act together, I'm going to need new drives for my ReadyNAS soon.
Should I buy the 1.5 TB Seagate or an alternative?
I'm considering whether to buy one of these drives for my Mac. I've posted a topic on the Apple Support Discussion Forums about this, but so far I've had no replies. The topic is at:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1796125
The only thing I forgot to mention in my post there is that I want to format my new drive as a single partition, in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format, and to boot from it. It will be the only hard drive in my Mac. The information quoted from the Other World Computing website at post number 66 implies that this isn't possible without a performance hit.
If anyone has any thoughts on this, I'd be grateful.
Many thanks.
I'm considering whether to buy one of these drives for my Mac. I've posted a topic on the Apple Support Discussion Forums about this, but so far I've had no replies. The topic is at:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1796125
The only thing I forgot to mention in my post there is that I want to format my new drive as a single partition, in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format, and to boot from it. It will be the only hard drive in my Mac. The information quoted from the Other World Computing website at post number 66 implies that this isn't possible without a performance hit.
If anyone has any thoughts on this, I'd be grateful.
Many thanks.
Hey Mate,
Personally I wouldn't take the risk with anything that is getting bad reviews, it maybe that you could get it replaced if it goes faulty while it's still under warranty, and provided you have a good backup strategy you shouldn't see too much downtime.
But if it goes down out of warranty then it could mean a costly replacement.
I wouldn't take the gamble on something as important as storage, I realise that 1.5 TB Seagate is 50% larger, but what good is the extra space if you're having issues using it. Given the fact that you currently only have 450 GB worth of storage spilt over three drives, then surely the 1 TB Samsung is going to be a big improvement.
As far as formatting it as a single partition or even using a drive that size in a MDD G4 you'll have to do a bit more research. I did a quick check, but the only info I found was someone saying that there isn't any size restrictions as the have just chucked in a 500 GB drive. (This must be reasonable old info). From my understanding HFS Plus supports almost 8 EB (EctaBytes) in a single volume meaning that any restrictions will be down to the ATA interface.
Cheers