Seagate 1.5TB from Newegg shipping w/ latest firmware?

[BrittQ]

I'm going to be buying a drobo this month (to take advantage of the $50 off coupon).
I wanted to get some of the Seagate 1.5TB drives from Newegg, but don't want to mess with firmware issue. I contacted Newegg twice and got the same response - they can't say for sure.

Has anyone recently ordered one of these drives from Newegg and it came with the new firmware?


side note: I wish the WD 2TB drives would come out already. I thought they were suppose to come out last week....?

 

[Raid]

I'm going to be buying a drobo this month (to take advantage of the $50 off coupon).
I wanted to get some of the Seagate 1.5TB drives from Newegg, but don't want to mess with firmware issue. I contacted Newegg twice and got the same response - they can't say for sure.

Has anyone recently ordered one of these drives from Newegg and it came with the new firmware?


side note: I wish the WD 2TB drives would come out already. I thought they were suppose to come out last week....?

I'm not really sure if they come fixed or not (and that's the main reason why I haven't bought mine yet either). But why don't you ask Newegg? AFAIK they are quite responsive and knowledgeable in answering questions about the products they sell.

 

[BrittQ]

I'm not really sure if they come fixed or not (and that's the main reason why I haven't bought mine yet either). But why don't you ask Newegg? AFAIK they are quite responsive and knowledgeable in answering questions about the products they sell.

I heard somewhere that Seagate is shipping the new drives with the updated firmware.

Like I said above, I contacted Newegg twice about whether their drives where shipping with the new firmware or not. I got the same response both times - They don't know, and don't want to give me any false information.
Which either means they still are shipping with the old firmware or they really do not know.

I'm trying to wait until I hear some sort of confirmation that the old firmware drives are flushed out of Newegg before I purchase them.

 

[design-is]

I'm going to be buying a drobo this month (to take advantage of the $50 off coupon).

side note: I wish the WD 2TB drives would come out already. I thought they were suppose to come out last week....?

I too was excited to hear Drobo supported these 1.5TB disks... But now I'm waiting to see their position on the 2TB drives before I purchase a Drobo or disks...

Good luck in your adventures.

 

[aricher]

Other World Computing still has the same disclaimer it's had for awhile on it's site for these drives:

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.

 

[BrittQ]

Other World Computing still has the same disclaimer it's had for awhile on it's site for these drives:

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.

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.

Does this only apply to Mac OS and enclosures that use the Oxford chipset? So a mac using Drobo and these drives would be ok (w/ the right firmware from seagate)?

 

[Amdahl]

Check the reviews on Newegg; for at least some models, purchasers there report getting new firmware drives. Newegg turns over inventory fast, so there is a good chance you will get new firmware.

Since the new (double fixed) firmware updater came out this morning, I burned it to CD(s) and updated my 7200.11 drives. I did it on PC, but I understand that Intel Macs can boot the CD as long as you have a way to connect the Seagate drive (such as a Mac Pro).

I actually used two PCs, because the 750GB drive wouldn't recognize with my chosen clunker. The newer PC did recognize it, and all drives firmware updated fine and are working.

Seagate definitely made some mistakes with this whole fiasco, but everything is good now. Spread the word, especially to people who may not know they have a drive with this bug! (The bug causes the drive to potentially brick on 1 in 320 powerups, or something, until firmware updated. No data is lost.)

 

[BrittQ]

I'm going to wait about one more week then take the plunge and hope the drives w/ the bad firmware is flushed out of Newegg. If the drives have the bad firmware I'm just going to return them. I'll take the WD 2TB drives or the Seagate 1.5TB drives w/ working firmware - whichever I can get my hands on first.

 

[Jess.H]

I'm going to wait about one more week then take the plunge and hope the drives w/ the bad firmware is flushed out of Newegg. If the drives have the bad firmware I'm just going to return them. I'll take the WD 2TB drives or the Seagate 1.5TB drives w/ working firmware - whichever I can get my hands on first.

Agreed. Perhaps it's sad, but I can't really live without this kind of storage these days.

 

[antibact1]

Run as far away from Seagate drives as possible. I wouldn't care what they say about the firmware, their drives are terribly unreliable right now. Go with the Western Digital Caviar Blacks.

 

[BrittQ]

Well, WD launched their 2TB drives, with an MSRP of $299. Thankfully retailers are selling below that. Now to wait for some reviews and for the price to settle down a little bit.

 

[cmoore31]

Just Got 2 Seagate 1.5 TB drives from New Egg for my Drobo they are not "Qualified" by Data Robotics. See Here However they are the most recent firmware also see here See the NOTE.

* Note: If your drive has CC firmware, your drive is not affected and no further action is required. Attempting to flash the firmware of a drive with CC firmware will result in rendering your drive inoperable.

The drives that I received from New Egg shipped with CC3G Firmware. I will let you know how it all goes.