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

[Giskard]

I just purchased four lightly used Seagate Barracudas, ST1000DM003.  Performance and power usage specs are unreal, and I couldn't wait to install them in my Mac Pro and set them up in a RAID 10.  

I installed them and was blown away by the speed, but my awe soon turned to disapointment.  The drives are not all the same firmware revision, and so they differ quite a bit in performance, not good for a RAID setup.  But hey, no problem, before I bought the drives I made sure that I could upgrade to the latest firmware, detailed here:

http://knowledge.seagate.com/articles/en_US/FAQ/223651en

All I had to do was download and burn the bootable ISO image, upload the firmware to each drive.  Simple.  Thanks for supporting Macs, Seagate!

I discovered that the bootable firmware CD I burned is utterly useless in a Mac Pro.  It does not recognize any drives.  I removed all drives but one Barracuda, and still it does not recognize the drive.  It simply reports that there are no drives to update. 

So now I have four drives with different (old) firmware versions, and with all the chirping it sounds like a freakin' rookery in my Mac Pro.

Is there some trick to get the firmware update utility working in a Mac Pro, or did I just get punk'd?

[Giskard]

Update:

I successfully updated the firmware on an Intel SSD using Intel's bootable ISO image burned to disk, so the failure of Seagate's firmware update utility is definitely not due to a limitation of the Mac Pro's SATA controller.

I realize that Seagate's Mac support division most likely consists of some guy in a basement with a can of roach killer, but it would be considerate of them to at least note on the firmware update utility download page that it does not support Apple computers.

[Giskard]

Nobody from Seagate has any suggestions?

[Giskard]

Nudge

So that's it, Seagate doesn't care about Mac users at all? These are potentially great drives, I'd hate to never use Seagate products again...

[Hammey]

Hi well you also need to look to apple they have a proprietary bit going on where they really give no information to other manufactures of pc parts. Just for a idea give apple a call on there support tell them what drive's you put in your mac and what you are using on it and see if they want to give you support. If its not theres they dont care. Myself I agree macs where good pc's but now there all intel parts nothing of there own, there os can be run on any pc. Its time mac users steped up and complain to apple that other hardware and programs does just not work on there systems. So maybe apple just wont give seagate the info they need to have there programs work. You have to agree if you constantly have ask many times for information and you never get it you eventually give up apple has blocked the door. Get your hard drives and all other parts from them use there flash programs. Things are bad when you cant even install a new none mac gaming mouse on your mac pc.

[Giskard]

If this is Apple's fault, then why was I able to update the firmware on my Intel SSD?  Does Intel have a secret stash of magic firmware fairy dust?  

Anyways, the only reason this is an issue for me is because Seagate claims on their support site that their bootable ISO image firmware updater supports Intel Macs.  If they had not made such a claim, I wouldn't have bought their product and all would be well.  

I'd be happy if Seagate would just update their support page to note that Macs are not supported, so other Mac users don't get punk'd like I did.  

[Hammey]

Hi yes I agree with you if they claim support it should work or remove it and change the info. Although I have looked around and found people that have updated seagate drives firmware on a mac. Did you set the drive access to ide mode if you cant get it to work maybe you can find a windows system to update them on, yes you should not have to but . Hope you get it sorted

[Giskard]

No, I can't set the SATA controller to IDE mode on a Mac Pro. That's probably why some people can get the ISO updater to work on older Macs, because their SATA controllers aren't locked in AHCI mode.

I should note that I've updated the firmware on yet another drive in my Mac Pro using a bootable ISO image. This one was a Crucial M4 SSD. So both Intel and Crucial offer bootable ISO images for updating firmware that work perfectly fine on my Mac Pro. It seems pretty clear to me that Seagate are either too lazy or too cheap to pay someone to spend a few days making a bootable ISO firmware updater that will work on all Intel hardware.

I could beg someone with a Windows machine to let me crack their case open to update the firmware, but I'm opposed to going through that hassle based on principle every time Seagate updates their firmware.

Thankfully, I've found a solution. I sold these drives on eBay and will purchase a non-Seagate product. If Seagate ever decide to spend a few days working on a functional bootable ISO firmware updater, I'll happily buy another Seagate drive. Until then, I'm sure they won't miss my business

[Hammey]

Hi yes I see it recommended by some forum admins. Example video card try it in a friends system to see if it works even though doing so may kill your buddys system not a good practice for sure.