Barracuda XT, Barracuda, Barracuda Green, DiamondMax and other desktop SATA and IDE drives

[lifespeed]

OK, I am not surprised to hear that.  I pushed him on that point, making it very clear that I was using an SAS RAID card, but he stuck to his tech support guy script.

Would you do me a favor and email me the AN05?  I'm getting tired of wasting time with their tech support.  Check your PMs.

Thanks,

Lifespeed

Tech guy:  It's an SAS controller?

Me:  Yes.  But SAS controllers can connect to SATA drives.

Tech guy:  So it's connected using SATA?

Me:  It's an SAS controller connected to an SATA drive, that's what the ST31000340NS is.  The plug and cables are the same.  I don't know what you mean by 'connected using SATA'.

Tech guy:  Well, then SN05 is the right firmware for you.

Message Edited by lifespeed on 08-14-2008 01:26 PM

[lifespeed]

I can't believe this!  I tried to make a boot CD using the AN05 .ISO file from Seagate and it only puts the readme.txt file on the disc.  It won't even boot!!  This is on Vista x64 using both Nero8 and Imgburn.  I guess there is no floppy image in the AN05 FW update, so I can't try that.

What a bunch of garbage.

[JanJanssen]

Did you see this for burning iso images?

[lifespeed]

Just thought I would report back on my results.  I updated to AN05 in my Seagate 1 TB ES.2 ST31000340NS  on Highpoint Rocketraid 3520 SAS controller connected to four 1 TB drives.  Seagate support was pretty marginal and kept pushing the SN05 firmware, despite my SAS controller.

Anyway, the FW update was non-destructive.   Inconvenient, yes.  I had to plug each drive individually into my motherboard IHC9R SATA II controller to flash the drives.  Additionally, the BD drive that was supposed to boot the CD to flash the drives would not work with the controller set to RAID.  I had to 'disable' the advanced features for the optical drive to boot.

Once this minor detail was overcome, all the bad sector errors on the drives in the array went away.  And speeds increased form 330 MB/220 MB read/write to 330 MB/290 MB read/write.  Big difference, wahoo!

And I used AN05 for my 1 TB windows drive, too, in the interest of consistency.  Someday I'm sure it will get added to the RAID array.  Speeds here went from 100/80 to 80/80.  Too bad, but I expect it will get replaced with a flash drive eventually.

[etown]

I just talked to the (not so willing to help w/ giving me AN05) tech support as well.  Refused to send me the AN05 for my current SN04 drive saying that "The SN05 is the upgrade for your device.  Unless we have a AN04 device on our records for you then we will not send it."  Thanks for the (lack of) help, I have what I need now.

http://www.3ware.com/KB/article.aspx?id=15385

Direct DL Link: 

ST31000340NS (1 TB)

ST3750330NS (750 GB)

ST3500320NS (500 GB)

ST3250310NS (250 GB)

//Eric

[nightmare99]

I think its pretty shocking they don't have an article ad DL links in thier own knowledge base.

[sbonds]

I have a Dell PowerEdge 1900 with the PERC 5/i SATA/SAS controller.  On my RAID-1 drives, the ES.2 keeps dropping out with CRC errors or command timeouts, along with a really scary clicking sound.  However, when I hook it up to another non-RAID controller to run SMART tests, it works great.  It's been RMAd once already, and while I can RMA it each time it fails for the next 4.7 years, I'd rather find a real solution.

Google led me to this conversation, and it looks like a match for my symptoms and configuration (RAID SATA/SAS + ES.2 + SN05 firmware).  I've talked with Seagate support and they're pretty insistent that SN05 is appropriate.  I'll see if I can lead them here since it looks like we have 3+ other cases of similar configurations solved by AN05.

[nightmare99]

@sbonds, I would install AN05 if I were you it does not seem to require any special hardware requirements and people have seen improvents on standard controllers as well.  If I were you I don't think you have much to loose so install it and try it.

[SeaSoft]

I have a lot of problems to get this ST31000340NS running on NAS NSS6000 on customers. To have 4 working well, I need to bring 6 or 7 from the distribuitor. When I get those 4 working, they work like a charm. 

But if I install the ST31000330NS (750GB) on place, no "rejection" problems.

Is there any firmware to upgrade on the ST31000340NS ?

[1timepost]

I couldn't flash the drive using the bootable CD using an ICH9 controller until I disabled AHCI mode in the BIOS.

The dos environment would end with this message:

getFATblock failed: 0x000000e8

Invalid Opcode at 03a0 0000 140

I guess it makes sense since the bootable CD is free DOS based and has limited controller driver support.

Hopefully this will save someone else some time.