Seagate FreeAgent Pro eSATA problems...solved!
Well sort of, I guess. Previously, in my first blog post in fact, I documented the problems I'd been having getting my Seagate FreeAgent Pro external hard drive to work reliably over its eSATA connection.
Recap
The interface firmware that the drive originally came with sucked so badly that the throughput on the eSATA interface was barely any higher than that on the USB interface (39MB/sec vs 33MB/sec). Since I'd specifically spent the extra money to get the "Pro" version of the drive to use it over eSATA, I was annoyed.
Eventually I found that Seagate had some updated firmware for the drive, although there was (and still is) nothing on their web site to indicate this. After finding the link and downloading and applying the update, the speed of the eSATA interface was indeed much improved to an average of 57MB/sec. However, hot-plugging (turning the drive off and on while the computer is still running) didn't work and, more seriously, whenever I would write large amounts of data to the drive, it would turn itself off, then back on.
Clearly using this drive over an eSATA connection was unworkable.
Seagate's Forum
Since I had searched all over the Web looking to see if others had solved this problem already, I had read many threads on Seagate's own "Community Forums". Unfortunately, most of the threads were people experiencing similar problems and nobody really had much success.
Although Seagate's Community Forums are meant to be a "peer support" area where users just help each other, they are monitored and moderated by Seagate personnel. Some heavy handed ones too. When I posted a link to my blog in response to somebody asking about the firmware update, I was threatened with a "ban" by one of the moderators who dismissed any claims that this product has a problem and characterized the issues people were reporting as "based on wrongheaded assumptions or incorrect configurations".
I still scan their forum every so often and it is depressing to read how many people are having the same problems over and over with these drives and very little or nothing is being done to help them. This is one of the main reasons that I wanted to blog on this topic and it makes me feel better when I see that people are finding these blog entries by searching Google etc for terms like "FreeAgent firmware" or "FreeAgent eSATA".
My "fix"
Well, sorry to disappoint you, but I eventually gave up trying to get my FreeAgent Pro to work both quickly and reliably over eSATA. I actually ripped the drive out of the enclosure and put it into an Icy Dock case that I bought (an MB559US-1S-B, if you're interested). Here is the resulting HD Tach benchmark:
It is clear that the interface is no longer limiting the drive's throughput. Also notable is the fact that the burst speed has increased from 104MB/sec in the original Seagate enclosure to 255MB/sec - another indication that the interface implementation in the Icy Dock case is much superior.
I've tested the drive in the Icy Dock case for a couple of weeks now and haven't had a single issue with it. I can turn the drive off and on (after "unmounting it" using the excellent little HotSwap! utility here) without freezing my computer and it doesn't turn itself off when I copy large files to it.
Further indications that things are working much better are the fact that I don't get dozens and dozens of messages in my Event Log including:
Incidentally, taking the FreeAgent Pro case apart is very hard. Even though I followed step-by-step instructions that somebody else had kindly posted, I still couldn't get the drive out without breaking one of the clips holding the two halves together.
Conclusion
Had I known all of this ahead of time, of course I never would have purchased the FreeAgent Pro. If I was doing it again I would have saved myself about $70 (not to mention hours of time) and purchased an OEM internal hard drive and the Icy Dock case.
I really wanted to like this drive. I liked the styling and the fact that it was practically silent (the Icy Dock case does let a little more of the drive's sound out) and while USB was my only option I was happy with it. But Seagate gives the appearance of pretending that there is no problem with this drive and certainly doesn't seem to want to fix it and that's not cool.
Recap
The interface firmware that the drive originally came with sucked so badly that the throughput on the eSATA interface was barely any higher than that on the USB interface (39MB/sec vs 33MB/sec). Since I'd specifically spent the extra money to get the "Pro" version of the drive to use it over eSATA, I was annoyed.
Eventually I found that Seagate had some updated firmware for the drive, although there was (and still is) nothing on their web site to indicate this. After finding the link and downloading and applying the update, the speed of the eSATA interface was indeed much improved to an average of 57MB/sec. However, hot-plugging (turning the drive off and on while the computer is still running) didn't work and, more seriously, whenever I would write large amounts of data to the drive, it would turn itself off, then back on.
Clearly using this drive over an eSATA connection was unworkable.
Seagate's Forum
Since I had searched all over the Web looking to see if others had solved this problem already, I had read many threads on Seagate's own "Community Forums". Unfortunately, most of the threads were people experiencing similar problems and nobody really had much success.
Although Seagate's Community Forums are meant to be a "peer support" area where users just help each other, they are monitored and moderated by Seagate personnel. Some heavy handed ones too. When I posted a link to my blog in response to somebody asking about the firmware update, I was threatened with a "ban" by one of the moderators who dismissed any claims that this product has a problem and characterized the issues people were reporting as "based on wrongheaded assumptions or incorrect configurations".
I still scan their forum every so often and it is depressing to read how many people are having the same problems over and over with these drives and very little or nothing is being done to help them. This is one of the main reasons that I wanted to blog on this topic and it makes me feel better when I see that people are finding these blog entries by searching Google etc for terms like "FreeAgent firmware" or "FreeAgent eSATA".
My "fix"
Well, sorry to disappoint you, but I eventually gave up trying to get my FreeAgent Pro to work both quickly and reliably over eSATA. I actually ripped the drive out of the enclosure and put it into an Icy Dock case that I bought (an MB559US-1S-B, if you're interested). Here is the resulting HD Tach benchmark:
It is clear that the interface is no longer limiting the drive's throughput. Also notable is the fact that the burst speed has increased from 104MB/sec in the original Seagate enclosure to 255MB/sec - another indication that the interface implementation in the Icy Dock case is much superior.
I've tested the drive in the Icy Dock case for a couple of weeks now and haven't had a single issue with it. I can turn the drive off and on (after "unmounting it" using the excellent little HotSwap! utility here) without freezing my computer and it doesn't turn itself off when I copy large files to it.
Further indications that things are working much better are the fact that I don't get dozens and dozens of messages in my Event Log including:
- The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk4\D.
- An error was detected on device \Device\Harddisk4\D during a paging operation.
- The system failed to flush data to the transaction log. Corruption may occur.
Incidentally, taking the FreeAgent Pro case apart is very hard. Even though I followed step-by-step instructions that somebody else had kindly posted, I still couldn't get the drive out without breaking one of the clips holding the two halves together.
Conclusion
Had I known all of this ahead of time, of course I never would have purchased the FreeAgent Pro. If I was doing it again I would have saved myself about $70 (not to mention hours of time) and purchased an OEM internal hard drive and the Icy Dock case.
I really wanted to like this drive. I liked the styling and the fact that it was practically silent (the Icy Dock case does let a little more of the drive's sound out) and while USB was my only option I was happy with it. But Seagate gives the appearance of pretending that there is no problem with this drive and certainly doesn't seem to want to fix it and that's not cool.
posted by noegruts at
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
17 Comments
