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

[quadz]

OK, same problem here. This was my first and my last seagate product. I can reproduce the Problem. Tested with:

- gentoo, gentoo kernel 2.6.25-r8, on ASUS M2N32 WS Pro with sata_nv driver

- debian etch-and-half, vanilla kernel 2.6.28-rc3,on M2N-VM HDMI with ahci driver

- Updated BIOS firmware

- Switched the CPU

- Switched the RAM

- Switched the SATA cables

- Switched SATA1 jumper block on the disc

- Switched Powersupplys

[bilbomacuser]

In response to alloyking:

Whilst I do use other drives for more demanding tasks, my Seagate 1.5 TB drive is just used for my iTunes library, and is not in a RAID, and the drive fails to perform adequately for even that task - video and music playback are regularly interrupted by the drive freezing.

This drive is not even good enough for consumer applications currently. 

[claes]

According to support, the problem with OSX is because it is UNIX based operating system.

Here is latest chat with support:

"We don't support drives in RAID configuration, which means that I can't tell you why the drive is acting that way as it could be an issue with the RAID itself. OSX has the problems because it is based on Unix, which Linux is based on. I've not heard of the issue on Vista, so I don't know if the same solution will work."

[bilbomacuser]

This is a real eye-opener.  What the hell does Seagate actually support?  I never heard such ridiculous statements as I've read in this thread.  Does anyone have experiences of how other companies deal with situations like this? I've not heard of anything similar with other brands.  Maybe if Western Digital ever screwed up like this, would they too blame it on everyone except themselves?

I thought Seagate used to have a good reputation - are they deliberately trying to throw that away?

Message Edited by bilbomacuser on 11-08-2008 02:45 PM

Message Edited by bilbomacuser on 11-08-2008 02:47 PM

[sneakycanuck]

I'm having this same problem on my 1.5TB Segate (ST31500341AS SD17) and Vista 64-bit. The "freezing" lasts for much longer than 30 seconds though, closer to 4 or 5 minutes. When I installed Vista on this drive and was having these problems I just assumed it was Vista that was **bleep** and was putting up with it until I had time to reinstall XP again. Wasted night after night trying all kinds of random things (defragging, disabling Paging, Superfetch, reinstalling Vista, etc, etc, etc)

I ran into this thread today and tried disabling writing cache and although I haven't had any freezing since (still too early to tell if it's stopped since the freezing is totally random), the performance is really poor. Windows takes about 30 seconds longer to boot with write cache disabled.

If the freezing stops I can put up with the slowness for a short while longer ...but I need new firmware and I need it now

Message Edited by sneakycanuck on 11-08-2008 05:59 PM

Message Edited by sneakycanuck on 11-08-2008 06:00 PM

Message Edited by sneakycanuck on 11-08-2008 06:04 PM

[redknag]

Synology now have this drive listed as compatible. They obviously haven't tried streaming from them. I have, and confirm they don't work in the synology DS408. 4 x 1Tb work a treat though.

[Herman]

http://techreport.com/discussions.x/15863

[jafa]

---

Official statement:
Seagate is investigating an issue where a small number of Barracuda 7200.11 (1.5TB SATA) hard drives randomly pause or hang for up to several seconds during certain write operations. This does not result in data loss nor does it impact the reliability of the drive but is an inconvenience to the user that we are working to resolve with an upgradeable firmware.

We are therefore asking customers if they feel they are experiencing this issue to give our technical support department a call with any questions.

Affected part number: 9JU138-300, 336 with firmware revisions SD15, SD17, or SD18.

Support contact information:

Technical Support in the USA: 1.800.SEAGATE (1.800.732.4283)
Technical Support in Canada: 1.405.324.4700

Other regions please go to our support web page: http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/

---

The official statement is slightly misleading...

1) When the problem occurs all hard drive operations stop until the OS times out the ATA command - typically 30 seconds. This results in the computer freezing for 30 seconds.

2) The problem can result in data loss if using a RAID system. Depending on the OS/RAID configuration the problem may cause a RAID system to think the drive has died. The RAID system automatically removes the drive and continues to run degraded (as designed). 20 minutes later when another drive exhibits the problem the RAID system drops the second drive and dies.

3) The problem may be a systematic problem rather than a small number of drives - all drives have I tested running the SD17 firmware have exhibited the problem.

Message Edited by jafa on 11-10-2008 05:20 AM

[junction10]

I have personally suffered data loss as a result!

I've lost about 3 weeks worth of concert photos (my livelihood!) which were on 4 of these drives inside a Drobo, which was being backed up onto another Drobo containing another 4 of them.

The Drobo reported one of the drives had been removed (it hadn't, it was firmly in place), and so I ejected the drive and reinserted it to make sure..  it started to rebuild itself and mirror the data across, but still wouldn't recognise the drive was in..  so I was down the 3 drives, and a rebuild...

Then I watched in horror as one by one, each bay turned red, signifying not a failure, but the drive had been removed...

I attempted data recovery on each drive individually, taking 24 hours for each scan - only to find the files were all corrupt on the SOURCE drive!

That's when I discovered the problem, and had to face restoring from an earlier backup, thus losing recent work, onto another set of Seagates that could go at any time... one did, in the 2nd set.

I reinitialised the first set, since I hadn't got any spare storage, and wanted to get at least a partial backup of my data, in case the other seagates died..  and managed to get two sets of Seagates with my archive, almost...  some files are missing of the one set.

I went out at the first opportunity, and bought some Hitachi drives, and started to copy the data from the set of Seagates..  every 2 or 3 files, the Seagates would freeze and require me to reboot the Drobo unit..  it was on particularly large image files, anything over 70mb.  smaller images of about 10mb were copying ok..    so now my data was on that set of Seagates, I couldn't get them OFF the drive without it locking up!

Fortunately, the other set is letting me get the data off - but this is not a complete copy of the other set, so I have some data that I can't get at. 

I'd had my drives 3 weeks when I reported it to the retailer, AND tech support.  The retailer is refusing to exchange or refund, and I'm sat here with the threat of losing all my work, already having lost some, because until now, Seagate denied it, and I can't afford to have £1,100 worth of metal bricks holding my image library.

This problem CAN cause data loss, and HAS!

[integrae]

I bought 4 st31500341AS firmD17 and the disks doesn't work with Adaptec 2820SA!!!!! is a problem of the firmware too?

thanks