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Rumor: Random Freezes Plague Seagate 1.5TB Hard Drive Owners

Posted 11/07/08 at 02:20:30 PM |  by Paul Lilly

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Seagate earlier this year launched the industry's frist 1.5TB desktop drive, which remains the largest capacity drive available on the market. To accomplish the feat without sacrificing performance, Seagate packed just four platters inside with an areal density of 375GB per platter resulting in what the company claims is a sustained data rate of 120 MB/s. It all sounds great on paper, but could there be something wrong with the high capacity drive?

A jaunt over to Seagate's support forum reveals an 11+ page thread of users complaining that their 1.5TB drives are exhibiting random freezes. Most of the complaints stem from users running a RAID array in Ubuntu, but mixed in are a handful of users claiming the same behavior being displayed in single-drive setups in other operating systems, including Max OS X and Vista.

According to the various comments, support inquiries have ranged from "Unfortunately, we do not support Linux" and "Again, these drives are not meant to be used in a RAID environment so we are not going to be working towards a solution for this environment," to "This is an issue we are currently working on. I know it's a hassle for now, but we're working on it as quickly as we can. As soon as we have information available we'll let you know." Other users claim they're being told a limitation error in Vista might be the culprit and they should try reducing the partition size to 1TB.

Any Seagate Barracuda 1.5TB owners experiencing similar symptoms? Hit the jump and let us know if you're having any issues with your drive.

COMMENTS:
4
TAGS: 
Hard Drive, seagate, ubuntu, linux, build a pc, rumor, defect, 1.5tb, random freezing
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COMMENTS
avatarIts not just a 1.5 TB problem

Submitted by gunga64 on Tue, 2008-12-02 09:05

This "Problem" has been going on for a very long time. It is not just a 1.5 TB problem. I have had problems with seagate drives since 750 GB over 3 years ago. In raid they break the raid all the time. The systems slow down to a crawl to the point that the servers crash. This is not a single bad drive issue as I have replaced all of the drives and still have problems. You can also forget about using 1 TB drives they performed even worse. Now I know they never fixed the problem even in the 1.5 Tb size.

They do not work realiably in raid or enclosed in a usb case. They also tend to just fail period over time. I have switched to wd and have had no issues. These seagate drives even have issues with adaptec controllers. Adaptec say those drives need to be upgraded to a new firmware and give numbers, but when you contact seagate they say there are no firmware upgrades. Its just every disappointing. So I switched to wd and have much more reliable systems.

Seaget does advertise these drives capable of doing raid but they fail. All they do is send me a refurb drive in place. Which I never use in raid now. 

 

 

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avatarSeagate has an article on the 1.1TB limitation in Vista

Submitted by daveangel on Sat, 2008-11-08 17:22

 I already posted about it on here:

<a href="http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.asp?m=559728&mpage=1&key=&#559728">Symptom:

  • When building a new Windows Vista system, you
    are unable to partition and format the full 1.5 TB capacity on NVIDIA
    chipsets.  During the format, Windows Vista hangs with the message that
    it cannot continue the drive format.  See Solution 1 or Solution 2
    below.
  • When adding a second drive to an existing Windows
    Vista System, you are unable to partition and format the full 1.5TB
    capacity on NVIDIA chipsets.  See Solution 3 below.

</a>

Or it could be related to the bug that hit some of the 1TB drives here:

<a href="http://seagate.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/seagate.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=5217&p_created=1203714920&p_sid=FH63Gpij&p_accessibility=0&p_redirect=&p_lva=5344&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPTEmcF9zb3J0X2J5PSZwX2dyaWRzb3J0PSZwX3Jvd19jbnQ9MjIxLDIyMSZwX3Byb2RzPTAmcF9jYXRzPTAmcF9wdj0mcF9jdj0mcF9zZWFyY2hfdHlwZT1hbnN3ZXJzLnNlYXJjaF9ubCZwX3BhZ2U9MSZwX3NlYXJjaF90ZXh0PWZpcm13YXJlIHVwZGF0ZXM*&p_li=&p_topview=1">
A small number of Barracuda 7200.11 drives with firmware
versions SD04 or SD14 may show and utilize only part of the available
cache.  Please follow these steps to ensure that your system recognizes
the full cache.

</a>

Well I only own the 1.5TB seagate external and haven't had any problems with it myself but others are on it which I am not.

Intel Q9550 with crappy stock heatsink
Evga  8800GTS 320MB not 256MB--really that's a Vista bug!
Kingston valueram 800mhz ddr2 8GB
Intel DP35DP motherboard
SB X-Fi Xtremegamer
Plextor sata px755sa burner
150GB and 74GB rapto

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avatarMore than likely they'll be

Submitted by FusilliJerry82 on Fri, 2008-11-07 18:53

More than likely they'll be able to fix it by releasing a firmware update.  Not a huge deal.

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avatarOfficial response from seagate.

Submitted by Deanjo on Wed, 2008-11-12 19:41

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/

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