Sounds more like firmware problem than actual hardware issues. Ahh.. I wonder why manufacturers no longer provide firmware upgrades for HDDs.
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?
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.
Hehe.. Yeah, I remember upgrading my hard disk's firmware in the past. Perhaps they were a lot more buggy in those days.
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 drives failing and they have more more bang ... SOURCE: Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 drives failing - The Inquirer
Looks like Seagate didn't do anything on this. I had send back my 500GB HDD due the that Firmware issue, (SD15 made in Thailand). They give me a same model after few weeks, (SD15 from Thailand again). Few weeks later the same problem occur again. Then I had to send the HDD back to the shop again and wait for another few weeks. Finally I got back my HDD last week with Firmware of SD1A made in China. Hopefully this HDD will not fail again. Anyway, I already join the force of Deathstar (Hitachi). I can't affort to lost anymore data, due to that Firmware problem.
Deathstar was actually during the IBM days. Since Hitachi took over, I haven't heard of such stories yet.