[mythtv-users] Dec 2008 - State of the Art - Hard DriveRecommendations?

[Michael T. Dean]

On 12/17/2008 12:47 PM, Boleslaw Ciesielski wrote:
> Michael T. Dean wrote:
>   
>> On 12/17/2008 10:26 AM, Brian Phillips wrote:
>>     
>>> Michael T. Dean wrote:
>>>   
>>>       
>>>> Seagate has a new firmware that fixes the affected drives (
>>>> http://techreport.com/discussions.x/15863 ).  I've applied it to the
>>>> two affected drives of my three 1.5TB HDD's. 
>>>>
>>>> Note that you can only (legitimately) get the firmware update by
>>>> calling Seagate.  You can not get it through the online chat help. 
>>>> (And, though I've heard it can be found online in dark corners of the
>>>> Internet, do you really want to trust the /firmware/ of a harddrive
>>>> to whatever some person uploads.)    
>>> Newegg has the firmware download linked under their "product tour" of the
>>> affected drives.  It's not what I'd call a dark corner myself but maybe you
>>> prefer tigerdirect :P
>> Hmmm.  Wasn't there when I got the firmware.  I'll bet (unless the 
>> update utility checks to make sure the drive is the right model/firmware 
>> version before update) that bricks quite a few drives.  I've bought 3 of 
>> the drives from newegg and only 2 of them were affected models.  Oh, 
>> wait, that won't happen becaues /every/ customer review (and, by 
>> extrapolation, /every/ customer) at newegg is a high Tech Level, so they 
>> won't do anything stupid.
>>
>> Anyway, I'll leave that decision to those who spent/spend $130+ on the 
>> HDD's.
> I previously upgraded my 1.5TB drive (using the dark corner edition 
> firmware) and now downloaded the newegg edition and the binary firmware 
> file inside is exactly the same in both. However, the packaging is very 
> different. The dark corner edition comes with bootable ISO and floppy 
> images while the newegg edition just includes the DOS flash utility 
> (actually a slightly older version of it).
>   

Yeah, the official Seagate edition has the bootable ISO and floppy 
images, so the "dark corner edition" (heh) you found is probably one 
someone got from Seagate and uploaded (though, I /really/ wouldn't want 
one that got somehow modified--accidentally or maliciously).

> Also, I am pretty sure that the flash utility does check the hardware 
> version (how could it not? :-)). I did not follow the instructions (on 
> purpose) and did not disconnect other drives (different Seagate models) 
> and only the right drive got upgraded.
>   

Yeah, I was thinking more about the Seagate 1.5TB /part numbers/ that 
weren't affected (used the wrong term before)--i.e. for example, model 
ST31500341AS, part number 9JU138-568, firmware SD35 (and, really, there 
may be some 9JU138-xxx (where xxx != 300 or 336) that use firmware 
versions SDxx where xx < 1A).  I don't know whether the tool (or 
software, in general) can get information that specific from the drive.  
(I do know that the part numbers do /not/ appear anywhere in my logs, 
and generally Linux kernel hackers like to dump about any hardware info 
they can to make it easier to determine info without cracking the case.)

IIRC, the only thing my BIOS reports is the model number (ST31500341AS), 
but I have 3 drives with that model and only 2 were affected.  In my 
logs, I see the model number and firmware version, but no part number.

>> ***I can't say for sure whether this "doesn't support" stuff happened 
>> even before the firmware upgrade, but I didn't notice it until after:
>> Dec  8 17:41:58 hostname sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: enabled, read 
>> cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
>>     
> I get this on all Seagate drives, regardless of model/vintage.
>   

Cool.  I didn't keep pre-upgrade logs to compare, so thanks for the info.

Mike