7200.10 firmware

Zarf · 6 Aug 2007 at 16:23

Been noticing performance below expectations on my 4 disk raid 5 array of 7200.10's, on a PERC 5/i controller. After much testing and playing around with drivers/OS's and researching the net i'm fairly sure it's the firmware of the drives themselves (3.AAK). Has anyone got experience with reflashing these drives to a firmware which works properly?

HDTach :

I get the same sort of sustained reads with the same 4 drives in RAID0 as well.

rpstewart · 6 Aug 2007 at 20:53

Getting different firmware will be a problem, Seagate simply won't hand it out very readily. I've seen a number of postings on various forums about firmware issues on 7200.10s and most of them end with the OP being told to go away by Seagate.

jbloggs · 6 Aug 2007 at 21:11

There was a thread in this forum not so long ago on that very subject, unfortunately the Search function is not working at the moment, but the conclusion of the thread was that the firmware, 3.AAK (which seems to be the latest), was indeed the one that gave the slowest performance.

Zarf · 6 Aug 2007 at 22:12

I've sent a polite email off, hopefully they'll try and help me out or i'll be forced to replace my disks - a shame because i love the 5 year waranty.

It seems pretty devious of them to have released decent firmware at the start for all the initial reviews, and then nerfed it down, presumably to give better life expectancy so they won't need to follow through with their end of the waranty.

I've also noticed these disks to be fairly noisy when doing the random seek test in hdtach - is this common?

silversurfer · 7 Aug 2007 at 14:14

Ive got a weird problem with a seagate array too. They are old drives, would that make firmware easier to come by?

edit:
I got it working with a util called HDAT2 and adjusted a few things and that seemed to help :confused:

The actual seagate util I tried wont adjust any of the drive settings

Zarf · 13 Aug 2007 at 23:16

Finally got a reply :

Dear ****, Thank you for sending your E-mail inquiry. Your performance is WELL above the sustained transfer rate of your drives. We have the drives listed at "up to 72 MB/s". The performance sounds more than excellent. You have the latest firmware available and there are no upgrades or downgrades for the drive. If you have any additional questions, please let me know. Thank you,

Do they not know the implications of RAID?

Here's my original ticket, see if you think i wasn't clear.

Hi, I've built a new server last week, using a DELL Perc 5/i controller (Rebranded LSI MegaRAID 8408E) and four of your 500GB Barracuda 7200.10's (ST3500630AS). I've been noticing sustained read performance to be well below it's potential, both in raid0 and raid5 - I've spent the past week testing different OS's, Drivers, RAID card firmwares, even trying the onboard raid0, all with the same results. HDTACH results attatched. Performance seems unable to surpass 100MB/s and it was the same with 4 drives in RAID0. I'm sure you'll agree that i should be seeing around 200MB/s peak with my setup. After continued research I discovered many people have had similar issues, which were fixed by new firmware for the drives themselves. My Drives arrived with firmware version 3.AAK - Please could you provide me with either a downgrade or an upgrade to a version which works properly with RAID. Thanks, ****

How can i respond without being incredibly rude? My first thought was to send back my initial ticket, with every mention of RAID in bold and as a hyperlink to the wikipedia article on RAID, but i doubt that would get me any closer to new firmware.

jimmyjimmyo · 13 Aug 2007 at 23:49

They do not care buddy.

I have a problem with 2 of the 320gb versions of this drive using the same firmware and no one wants to help.

The drives make a nasty chirping sound at random intervals for a few minutes at a time and it is quite worrying for me but the retailer wont touch them unless they are dead and the manufacturer claims that they are within spec noise wise :rolleyes:

basmic · 14 Aug 2007 at 00:51

Zarf said:
Finally got a reply :

Do they not know the implications of RAID?

Here's my original ticket, see if you think i wasn't clear.

How can i respond without being incredibly rude? My first thought was to send back my initial ticket, with every mention of RAID in bold and as a hyperlink to the wikipedia article on RAID, but i doubt that would get me any closer to new firmware.

What I'd do, is test one individual drive with HD Tach. If it's below 72 MB/sec, then send them a screenshot, and give them a roasting.

killer_uk · 14 Aug 2007 at 01:07

I've got two of these drives both with the 3.AAK firmware, so I will be doing a benchmark and sending off the results to them as well. I will let you all know what I hear.