Issue with Seagate 1.5TB?

[jphall]

It's been an education!!!

I have never used DOS, so "Follow the instructions" doesn't help me much...

...I tried to type "flash.bat"....

Turns out the CD boots into the Read Me, and by pressing Escape I went into the actual Firmware Updater. Once in the updater all I had to do was press A for update, S for search ATA devices, etc. Seems the instructions could have told me I'd boot into the Read Me and not the Updater, in specific, understandable-by-non-DOS-speaking people language.

And to run the flash.bat, I'd press the letter A, which said nothing about flash.bat. Why not just say "you'll have to press Escape [or alt- crl- delete, etc.] to get into the updater, at which point you press A to update?"

PS Seagate told me (in the web page that came up when I entered the specific key to get the firmware) that the zip file I downloaded was specific to the serial number of my HDD. Take that as you wish, but it sounds to me that you wouldn't want to mess around with someone else's updater.

Actually, I was told this in the online support chat, and the key was for the web page to download the updater. That makes more sense than having a discrete updater for each specific serial number. But the updater is for a specific range of drives and is said to ruin a drive for which it was not intended.

PPS I am trying to flash the drive connected via FireWire 800 to an OWC Mercury Elite Pro. I'm assuming that will work.

It didn't work, and using a USB SATA adapter didn't either- the updater can't find those, only reporting the internal SATA drive on the MBP, and that it was not the drive it was looking to update. Good to know it knows that.

And reading through numerous pages of numerous threads, I find that it is possible to update the drive through an eSATA connection from the MBP.

Thanks for the insights of Ripmax2000 in post #97 of this thread, and ColdCase in post #61 of this thread.

Good luck, and be careful out there. Joel.



PS I'm still a newbie? Sheesh!

 

[whatisthe]

I would wait for the NS version of the drives before putting them in a Mac Pro. They are much more reliable than the AS versions generally and I wouldn't trust my data to such a new advancement. I googled the NS version since seagate has made no mention of it and found this australian seagate page about it.

 

[nanofrog]

I would wait for the NS version of the drives before putting them in a Mac Pro. They are much more reliable than the AS versions generally and I wouldn't trust my data to such a new advancement. I googled the NS version since seagate has made no mention of it and found this australian seagate page about it.

Now let's see how long it will take for them to deliver it.

 

[satori42]

Turning off Journaling worked for me

Is it really necessary to reformat before turning journaling off? If you go to Disk Utility, choose your Volume (not drive) and then hold down the option key and select File, there's an option to Disable Journaling. I'm considering doing this as a temporary solution but not sure how this will work on a Drobo.

Turning off Journaling worked for me, thanks davidwsica! I was getting pauses every few minutes in music playing in iTunes 8.0.2 (in OS X 10.5.5) coming from the 1.5TB drive, now it is playing cleanly.

Fingers crossed

 

[Mattww]

Turning off Journaling worked for me, thanks davidwsica! I was getting pauses every few minutes in music playing in iTunes 8.0.2 (in OS X 10.5.5) coming from the 1.5TB drive, now it is playing cleanly.

Fingers crossed

Has the firmware update not fixed the issue on the Mac or on a Drobo then?

 

[whatisthe]

Now let's see how long it will take for them to deliver it.

I read on some other forums that it would be this month but that's looking unlikely . I also read they may skip the 1.5 NS version and when they come out with 2tb hard drives make an NS version of that.

 

[nanofrog]

I read on some other forums that it would be this month but that's looking unlikely . I also read they may skip the 1.5 NS version and when they come out with 2tb hard drives make an NS version of that.

Given the issues with the AS version of the 1.5TB, I'd be amazed if it gets released this month. I just don't think they can pull it off that fast.

As for skipping it, I wouldn't expect that to happen at all. Enterprise is a serious market, and always has a demand for increased capacity drives. Which is reinforced by the fact it's usually cheaper to just replace the drives than add entire systems. Keeps the accounting departments happy at any rate.

Not to mention they want to milk each size increase for every cent they can first.

 

[gelid]

Has the firmware update not fixed the issue on the Mac or on a Drobo then?

I bought one of these drives yesterday from a local vendor with firmware CC1G. Slapped it in the third slot in my early 08 Mac Pro as soon as I got home, burned the CC1H ISO, rebooted and flashed the drive to CC1H. Then I booted back into OS X, formatted as one HFS+ partition with journaling on, and turned on Time Machine with the new drive as the target. Time machine backed up about 700GB to the new drive. I was monitoring the hard disk throughput for a large portion of the time and did not see any hiccups, nor did I see any error messages on the console. Seems to be working fine so far for me.

 

[Mattww]

I bought one of these drives yesterday from a local vendor with firmware CC1G. Slapped it in the third slot in my early 08 Mac Pro as soon as I got home, burned the CC1H ISO, rebooted and flashed the drive to CC1H. Then I booted back into OS X, formatted as one HFS+ partition with journaling on, and turned on Time Machine with the new drive as the target. Time machine backed up about 700GB to the new drive. I was monitoring the hard disk throughput for a large portion of the time and did not see any hiccups, nor did I see any error messages on the console. Seems to be working fine so far for me.

Thanks - sounds like it is now OK to buy for a Mac Pro. Now I just need to find out if they work OK in drobo so I can backup the internal one

 

[Mattww]

Thanks - sounds like it is now OK to buy for a Mac Pro. Now I just need to find out if they work OK in drobo so I can backup the internal one

I noticed today that the 1.5TB Seagate drive is now back on the drobolater calculator so I guess the drive must work OK now in a Drobo with the new firmware.

 

[Thiol]

Does anyone know if Seagate is selling any with the new firmware? That would save us all a step. I want to set up a backup server for a laboratory so I'd prefer not to take any chances if possible...

 

[NightSailor]

Upgrade the HD firmware

It is a firmware issue.

I was about to buy ten of these drives on Black Friday, for $110 each. But they I found out about the firmware issue. I decided to wait.

If I were you I'd return the drive or take a chance on updating the firmware.

Also, these drives are not intended for RAID, why not? Another reason i won't touch them yet.

 

[nanofrog]

Also, these drives are not intended for RAID, why not?

It cuts into sales of their Enterprise grade drives, which are designed to operate in RAID.

 

[emt377]

Also, these drives are not intended for RAID, why not?

They're not intended for enterprise raid because 1) they lack the command extensions necessary, 2) the spindles exhibit too much rotational drift, and 3) the spindles can't be externally phase locked by the drive tray controller. None of which is even remotely relevant to soho raid.

Edit: I also think the Enterprise SATA RAID market is pretty small compared to SAS.

 

[nanofrog]

They're not intended for enterprise raid because 1) they lack the command extensions necessary, 2) the spindles exhibit too much rotational drift, and 3) the spindles can't be externally phase locked by the drive tray controller. None of which is even remotely relevant to soho raid.

Edit: I also think the Enterprise SATA RAID market is pretty small compared to SAS.

For me, I've noticed the opposite. Far more SATA based RAID systems than SAS. When the economics are scrutinized, most companies chose the lower cost/higher capacity of SATA RAID.

 

[Mattww]

I'm just about to order a couple of these 1.5TB drives and a Drobo. Is the Firmware version printed anywhere on the label or can you only find out the version when they are installed?

The reason I ask is that I don't yet have an Intel Mac and I don't think there is any way to upgrade the firmware on a PowerPC Mac so I will need to take the drives to an Intel Mac or someone with a modern PC to do the update.

I'm also assuming that I'll have to wait until the new year to get the updater if required as I can't see a public download?

 

[Mattww]

Well my two 1.5TB drives arrived - I'm expecting the Drobo tomorrow or Friday. Both drives show Firmware CC1G on the labels. The worrying thing is that the part number ends -301 and Data Robotics show only -300 and -302 with Firmware versions SD1A and CC1J

I've e-mailed Seagate support to see about a Firmware update. Has anyone received the same versions and/or tried them in a Drobo?

 

[mattkime]

mbp owner here unable to update firmware via eSATA card

I have a 2.5Ghz MacBook Pro and an esata card and the update utility appears to be unable to see the card and is therefore unable to update the drive.

i may try to update the drive via the internal SATA port. wish me luck - there aren't many options here.

 

[NotChemist]

I have a 2.5Ghz MacBook Pro and an esata card and the update utility appears to be unable to see the card and is therefore unable to update the drive.

i may try to update the drive via the internal SATA port. wish me luck - there aren't many options here.

Which eSATA card do you have?

 

[Diamond Dave]

From the posts on the last couple of pages it looks like if I bought one of these drives I wouldn't be able to update the firmware on my Mac, as it's PowerPC. I'd have to use an Intel Mac or a Windows PC to run the update - is this correct? (I already use a Western Digital 250GB SATA drive in the machine without any problems, by way of an adapter from Granite Digital, so using a SATA drive isn't a problem, but booting the Mac from the ISO disk image might be?).

Secondly, I'd like to echo posts 111 & 116. Surely Seagate should start selling these drives with the firmware already updated ASAP, and state that this is the case for these specific units of the drive, or is it the case that this would cannibalise sales of the existing dodgy drives, and that they want to sell all of these first before they start to sell fixed ones?

Thirdly, re posts 102, 103, 106 & 107 - what on earth are "NS" and "AS" versions of the drives? What are the differences, and is there any way to tell from a vendor which type they are selling?

Fourthly, what about the quote from Other World Computing mentioned in Post number 66, that states that it isn't possible to use one of these drives as a single Mac partition without a performance hit?

Finally, does anyone know of any SATA drive that I could use in my Mac that's larger than 1TB, other than the Seagate in question, or is the Seagate currently the only larger-than-1TB 3.5" SATA drive on the market?

 

[nanofrog]

Finally, does anyone know of any SATA drive that I could use in my Mac that's larger than 1TB, other than the Seagate in question, or is the Seagate currently the only larger-than-1TB 3.5" SATA drive on the market?

Seagate is the only company making a drive over 1TB for now.

 

[Kusakun]

Any News regarding this problem? Im from Argentina and I want to buy one of this drives for my Macpro buy im a little bit frightened to get a bad one. I know I can return it.

But What do you guys say?

 

[Mattww]

The best advise would be to buy from somewhere that has just received stock as later drives seem to have more up to date firmware which doesn't have the pausing problem. If you can ask the retailer to check before shipping to you.

I ended up just installing and trying mine as Seagate support have yet to reply to my request for a Firmware update. I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt what with the holidays but it would sure be nice to have Western Digital and Hitachi to choose from as well when you need a drive larger than 1TB.

 

[NOD]

FWIW, I have 2 Drobo's, with 4 1.5TB drives total in them (2 bought in November, 2 bought in December).

The 2 that I got in October are used for a Drobo that serves entirely as a backup system for my mac pro. I haven't had any time machine problems on that one, and have only streamed video files from there a couple of times (to see if I experienced the stutter) and didn't have any problems. As I didn't have any problems, I didn't load the new firmware.

As for the 2 I got in December, I have them installed on the Drobo I use in my HT w/ my mac mini, and use it as a source for mostly HD video streaming. I use it multiple times (for hours at a time) daily, and have had no stutters or problems there either. So, I haven't upgraded the FW on those 2 either.

Right now, I'm trying to decide whether or not to do just-in-case FW upgrades for these 4 drives. Part of me thinks I should just go with the 'if it ain't broke...' approach and not upgrade.

 

[keithRmcbride]

my experience

I have had 2 of these bad drives since Thanksgiving and finally was able to update them today.

I couldn't seem to find any straight answer to some of the questions I had, so I wanted to share:

I do not have easy access to any desktop machines, so this whole process has been frustrating. I didn't want to pay $50 for a eSATA card for my MBP just for this. I have a PC laptop at work which has an eSATA port on it.

I ordered a SATA to eSATA cable on Amazon (as I couldn't find one in any store locally) and tried to do that. The CD I burned booted fine, but couldn't detect my drive. I went into the BIOS on the PC and changed the disk mode from AHCI to IDE and restarted. Now it was able to locate my disk. I told it to update, and it went. After the power cycle, it now shows the SD1A firmware as present.