Sham63 wrote:
I have new issue now. I opened a chat window and the tech said he couldn't help me, and I had to call support for this issue. So I call support, give my s/n and model number and tell him the problem(bricked drive). He says my drive qualifies for a replacement and not data recovery. So we go to warranty and returns and enter the info and a different drive comes up, a st3500641as. He said that is what he has listed, but on my drive it is shown as a st3500320as. He said the 641 is a better drive and I could still do the return even the model numbers do not match. My s/n # is 9QM68L9J. There is a Q as part of the number, so I tried using a 0 and O, but those were invalid part #, so I did not misread the number. The st3500641as is not shown as one of the drives affected by this issue. I just searched the site, and it is a 7200.9 series drive. So what the heck is going on here? Is the label on my drive wrong or is Seagate wrong?
Jim
Did you happen to buy this disk in a retail kit? I bought two kits (ST3500641AS-RK) that, despite having an ID
that indicated a known reliable 7200.9 drive, actually contained ST3500320AS 7200.11 drives. The drives
had a different part number from that on the box, and also said OEM on them! Despite this, the serial #s
on the boxes matched the serial#s on the drives. Perhaps the database used by Seagate is not properly
distinguishing the model# of the drive from the model# used on the box that contained the drive.
There have been several reports by people who bought boxed retail kits that contained
drives whose model# differed from the retail kit ID number, some wondering if this was an
attempt to unload known problematic 7200.11 drives.
I believe Seagate will claim that the retail kit # does not necessarily imply the model # contained in the kit.
This is annoying to say the least - how do you know what you are buying in a sealed retail boxed kit?
I bought these kits thinking I was getting drives with a known good reputation I'm still holding off on
using the ST3500320AS drives since they were intended to replace a RAID1 boot arrray and the
7200.11 drives have for some time been reported to have drop-out problems, especially in RAID arrays.
Despite current posts, it isn't realy clear that the latest update of of SD1A firmware (reportedly the 2/9/09 version)
can work well in RAID1 arrays for any period of time. There have been some posts saying they
seem to work, and some saying they definitely haven't after being upgraded to SD1A. Reports of
multiple failures of drives (different drives?) in RAID arrays suggest we should be cautious
Part of the uncertainty here is exactly WHICH version of SD1A is being used, and other potential factors
like is the "slowdown" jumper in use or not (these drives often ship with the SATAII disabling jumper in place),
did the drive seem to be having serious bad-sector problems previously, are there potential other
HW problems, etc.
Keep in mind that the "bricking" problem was due to a broken release firmware, which was withdrawn
and replaced by another in the 1/22/09 timeframe, and then the firmware was silently updated again
(appearing about 2/9/09, but with an ISO build time of 1/29/2009 embedded into the ISO).
What is really fixed, and what isn't fixed is NOT clear yet. Rare events will eventually occur (like the log-file
being at 320 when a system is shut down, leading to the "bricking") - so even if somebody updates their
firmware and says it seems to be working, we won't know for a while if the drives are reasonably reliable.
Perhaps there are boundary conditions related to timing, error management, etc. that will eventually trigger
I/O timeouts, drives dropping out, etc. that still need to be fixed. How are we to have confidence without
better information?
It would help if Seagate honestly told customers fully what was/is going on. What problems did they find,
and what are they confident they fixed? In which releases of firmware? What are outstanding issues?
Can we expect another firmware upgrade in the near timeframe to address any other know issues?
When?
The silence is deafening. It doesn't help for forum users to suggest that Seagate is doing
the best they can, or to suggest we should be nice to moderators. I've had a lot of experience in HW/SW
and there is no excuse for treating customers this way. Information is the best antidote to confusion.
SIlence and spin only adds to distrust and anger - it looks like a policy to hide problems rather than
to help customers. In the long run, this cannot be good for Seagate.
Others have asked why OEM ST3500320AS drives were packaged in ST3500641AS-RK kits,
and why these drives had "OEM" stamped on them despite being in retail kits, with no publilc
response.
