FREEZE!!!!!

mikegas · 12th Nov 2008, 09:15 AM

Seagate Responds to Freezing HDDs - Tom's Hardware

I just have to bang them ....

Quote:

Last week Tom’s Hardware had covered a bit about the freezing problems with Seagate’s Barracuda 1.5TB drives. We would like to update readers with the response that Tom’s Hardware has gotten directly from Seagate.

“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.”

Along with the above response from Seagate, we also received the part numbers for the affected models of Barracuda drives and their respective firmware revisions. They are as follows:

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

These responses come to light after last week’s allegations of 1.5TB Barracuda drives exhibiting random, unexplained freezing problems – the problems were usually most apparent with different types of data streaming, such as, streaming video, audio, or general network data streaming (downloads specifically) even at low speeds.

Linux users were complaining of ‘ata frozen’ hits in their kernel log files after drives would freeze and cause the system to become largely unresponsive from anywhere between a few seconds up to an entire minute. Mac and Windows users both complained of similar symptoms as well, some even reporting the Blue Screen of Death in Windows XP after long pauses.

Some users claimed a work-around by disabling ‘write caching’ features – a work around which stopped the freezing, but also manifest severely degraded disk performance, naturally.

If you feel you have been affected by this specific issue, please contact Seagate via their regular support channels listed below – and as mentioned above, Seagate is currently working on a firmware update for the affected models.

Chai · 12th Nov 2008, 09:46 AM

LOL! Don't be too happy. WD has their fair shares of problems too I'm sure.

mikegas · 12th Nov 2008, 09:59 AM

I bet they are putting in some experimental feature and uses end user as test rats...

Adrian Wong · 12th Nov 2008, 04:27 PM

Sounds more like firmware problem than actual hardware issues.

Ahh.. I wonder why manufacturers no longer provide firmware upgrades for HDDs.

Max_87 · 12th Nov 2008, 04:49 PM

Seagate hater

mikegas · 12th Nov 2008, 05:21 PM

Maybe there are too many data collected in the lifetime of the drive, when the drive fails they can just look at the logs. Flashing new firmware would destroy these logs. Nway, there are too many version of firmware even with same model drive... oops.. I shouldn't be telling this..

Chai · 12th Nov 2008, 05:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mikegas

Maybe there are too many data collected in the lifetime of the drive, when the drive fails they can just look at the logs. Flashing new firmware would destroy these logs. Nway, there are too many version of firmware even with same model drive... oops.. I shouldn't be telling this..

Don't worry, I know that very well.

I have 2 WD5000AAKS, both got different firmware version.

Adrian Wong · 12th Nov 2008, 06:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mikegas

Maybe there are too many data collected in the lifetime of the drive, when the drive fails they can just look at the logs. Flashing new firmware would destroy these logs. Nway, there are too many version of firmware even with same model drive... oops.. I shouldn't be telling this..

LOL! Well, that we know but wouldn't firmware updates help improve the reliability and/or performance of a drive?

mikegas · 13th Nov 2008, 10:16 AM

Well yeah as usual normally manufacturer would not give out firmware updates unless there is a problem with the version, unlike mobo, HDD are just recognize as memory space to most other electronics component so firmware inside HDD is for is own management and not much performance upgrade can be squeeze. I never see anyone OC a HDD ..

Chai · 13th Nov 2008, 10:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mikegas

Well yeah as usual normally manufacturer would not give out firmware updates unless there is a problem with the version, unlike mobo, HDD are just recognize as memory space to most other electronics component so firmware inside HDD is for is own management and not much performance upgrade can be squeeze. I never see anyone OC a HDD ..

Most firmware upgrades are usually bug fixes, not performance related, that includes mobo, graphics card etc.

12th Nov 2008, 09:46 AM	#2 (permalink)
Chai Administrator Join Date: 6 Oct 2002 Location: Maranello Posts: 28,124 Reputation: 4649 Rep Power: 82	LOL! Don't be too happy. WD has their fair shares of problems too I'm sure. __________________ Chai (Contributor & Forum Admin) http://www.techarp.com/

12th Nov 2008, 04:27 PM	#4 (permalink)
Adrian Wong Da Boss Join Date: 10 Oct 2002 Location: In front of my ASUS F8V notebook! Posts: 33,137 Reputation: 3730 Rep Power: 78	Sounds more like firmware problem than actual hardware issues. Ahh.. I wonder why manufacturers no longer provide firmware upgrades for HDDs. __________________ Dr. Adrian Wong Tech ARP \| Blog @ Tech ARP \| The Free Trade Zone DYKT : The only offshore account I have is at the sand bank? We need PROGRAMMERS and TECHNICAL WRITERS! Contact us if you are a hot shot programmer or technical writer! My items for sale : 50x SD Card \| Memory Stick PRO \| Cyclone Energy Saver \| Seiko SS watch \| Tiger/Carlsberg beer jugs \| Travel Speakers \| Motorola V600 \| Nokia N90 SOLD! \| New Lowepro Mini Trekker AW Other items for sale @ the FTZ : Zalman CNPS9500 LED @ $20 \| Zalman CNPS7700 Cu @ $20 \| Zalman CNPS7000 Cu @ $20 \| Swarovski bracelet watches \| Dell 17" LCD \| Hi-Fi speakers \| English DIVX movies \| HP LaserJet toners! \| Office chairs

12th Nov 2008, 04:49 PM	#5 (permalink)
Max_87 h@x! Join Date: 11 Aug 2003 Location: the land of bandwidth cap Posts: 11,446 Reputation: 2090 Rep Power: 38	Seagate hater __________________ Max_87 Tech ARP http://www.techarp.com Dell Studio 15 / P7350 / 3GB DDR2 / Radeon HD 3450 / 250GB 7200RPM / 15" @ 1920x1200 E8600 @ 4.4GHz 1.36v / Asus P5E3 Deluxe / 2x2GB DDR3 / Radeon X1800 / Barracuda 7200.9 120GB / 7200.10 320GB x2 / Caviar SE16 WD5000AAKS / WD6400AAKS x2 / Dell 2007FP x2 / Silverstone ST56F

12th Nov 2008, 09:59 AM	#3 (permalink)
mikegas Active Join Date: 7 May 2008 Posts: 531 Reputation: 396 Rep Power: 5	I bet they are putting in some experimental feature and uses end user as test rats...

12th Nov 2008, 05:21 PM	#6 (permalink)
mikegas Active Join Date: 7 May 2008 Posts: 531 Reputation: 396 Rep Power: 5	Maybe there are too many data collected in the lifetime of the drive, when the drive fails they can just look at the logs. Flashing new firmware would destroy these logs. Nway, there are too many version of firmware even with same model drive... oops.. I shouldn't be telling this..

13th Nov 2008, 10:16 AM	#9 (permalink)
mikegas Active Join Date: 7 May 2008 Posts: 531 Reputation: 396 Rep Power: 5	Well yeah as usual normally manufacturer would not give out firmware updates unless there is a problem with the version, unlike mobo, HDD are just recognize as memory space to most other electronics component so firmware inside HDD is for is own management and not much performance upgrade can be squeeze. I never see anyone OC a HDD ..