Firmware update for Seagate Barracuda drives
I was recently researching which drives I wanted to buy for a machine that will replace my trusty old Pentium II mail/web server. While browsing through the customer reviews on Newegg's site, I found that some people had been complaining of receiving drives that were reporting smaller cache sizes than advertised.
Specifically, this affected one of the drives that interested me, the Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 500GB drive with 32MB cache, model ST3500320AS. This drive was of interest because I've been very happy with the single-platter 250GB/16MB ST3250410AS drive that I use in my desktop machine and the 500GB drive is essentially a doubled-up version of that. Both drives offer very fast sustained transfer rates (topping out at about 95-105MB/sec) and run quite a bit quieter than the previous models with more platters.
While reading the reviews for the 500GB drive, there were several people reporting that their drive was reporting only 8MB of cache instead of the correct 32MB. This would make the drive a cheaper ST3500820AS instead of a ST3500320AS. I Google'd around for other reports and found many other people reporting the same thing.
Seagate's Oops
Eventually I guess somebody at Seagate figured out that they'd blundered and either labeled the 8MB cache drives as the 32MB model or shipped the 32MB model with the firmware from the 8MB model. There is now a firmware update available on the Seagate web site which corrects this problem and allows people that have purchased the drive to utilize the full 32MB cache. Note that there are two pages describing this problem on Seagate's web site, only one of which actually contains the link to the firmware, the other page says you need to call Seagate to obtain the update. I guess their web site team isn't on the ball either...
It is apparent from this situation that the difference between the 8/16/32MB cache versions of an otherwise identical Seagate hard drive is most likely just the firmware. It is quite probable that even the drives that are sold as containing 8MB of cache actually contain 32MB, but only 8MB of it is reported and used by the firmware on the drive. I expect it will only be a matter of time before somebody buys the cheaper drive and reports success when flashing it with the more expensive drive's firmware.
For reference, and to allow search engines to index this page with all the right model numbers, this problem affects the following Seagate drives:
ST31000340AS - Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1TB
ST3750330AS - Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 750GB
ST3500320AS - Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 500GB
Conclusion
If I'm not careful this blog is going to come over as a Seagate-bashing rant. Really, it isn't meant to be. I actually like their products and recommend them often. Just make sure you're getting all the cache you paid for!
Specifically, this affected one of the drives that interested me, the Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 500GB drive with 32MB cache, model ST3500320AS. This drive was of interest because I've been very happy with the single-platter 250GB/16MB ST3250410AS drive that I use in my desktop machine and the 500GB drive is essentially a doubled-up version of that. Both drives offer very fast sustained transfer rates (topping out at about 95-105MB/sec) and run quite a bit quieter than the previous models with more platters.
While reading the reviews for the 500GB drive, there were several people reporting that their drive was reporting only 8MB of cache instead of the correct 32MB. This would make the drive a cheaper ST3500820AS instead of a ST3500320AS. I Google'd around for other reports and found many other people reporting the same thing.
Seagate's Oops
Eventually I guess somebody at Seagate figured out that they'd blundered and either labeled the 8MB cache drives as the 32MB model or shipped the 32MB model with the firmware from the 8MB model. There is now a firmware update available on the Seagate web site which corrects this problem and allows people that have purchased the drive to utilize the full 32MB cache. Note that there are two pages describing this problem on Seagate's web site, only one of which actually contains the link to the firmware, the other page says you need to call Seagate to obtain the update. I guess their web site team isn't on the ball either...
It is apparent from this situation that the difference between the 8/16/32MB cache versions of an otherwise identical Seagate hard drive is most likely just the firmware. It is quite probable that even the drives that are sold as containing 8MB of cache actually contain 32MB, but only 8MB of it is reported and used by the firmware on the drive. I expect it will only be a matter of time before somebody buys the cheaper drive and reports success when flashing it with the more expensive drive's firmware.
For reference, and to allow search engines to index this page with all the right model numbers, this problem affects the following Seagate drives:
ST31000340AS - Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1TB
ST3750330AS - Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 750GB
ST3500320AS - Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 500GB
Conclusion
If I'm not careful this blog is going to come over as a Seagate-bashing rant. Really, it isn't meant to be. I actually like their products and recommend them often. Just make sure you're getting all the cache you paid for!
posted by noegruts at
Saturday, December 29, 2007
4 Comments:
Thanks for the news and links. You don't come across as a Seagate basher but I do hope they get the message from the info in your blog - your previous advice on the firmware upgrade to the FreeAgent Pro fixed my eSATA connectivity problems with that device.
@Joe: thanks for the comment. My Seagate-bashing remark was slightly tongue-in-cheek, but thanks for reassuring me.
By the way, I enjoyed your blog, you write very well. Even if you do sound like a cantankerous old bugger like me :-)
It's absolutely insane and downright criminal that Seagate doesn't post the firmware for the Barracuda drives on their site. Equally insane is NewEgg selling the product where any indicator of the problem is on the 6th page of the product reviews. You also need to contact them only Monday through Friday? ASUS for one has weekend hours and was always helpful. How grossly inconvenient and stupid! Why ever should someone have to beg tech support for the update? From all of my searches on this problem Seagate tech support takes forever to solve the problem and you are dealing with the usually communications barrier because of the support agents being located in India or at best Canada. I found your blog through the NCIX forums where you suggest contacting you via this blog for the update. Is it possible for you to do this for me. I also discovered the link you give earlier in the NCIX forum is for the eSATA firmware update. I don't think that will work for the internal drive will it?
Thank you in advance for your help. .
There is now another issue bedeviling several Seagate models, and it's a bit more serious than a wrong cache size.
http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=207931
A number of Seagate hard drives from the following families may fail when the host system is powered on:
Barracuda 7200.11
DiamondMax 22
Barracuda ES.2 SATA
SV35
PS. One of the tools to diagnose, Seatools for Windows, also seems to be incredibly flaky, with all sorts of Fatal errors during drive detection - does this program work for anyone?
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