Clicking sound with Seagate Barracuda LP ST32000542AS 2TB

What is the exact model of the drive?

What is the firmware version?

Are you encountering the "clicking" noise on the drive?

Hi guys.

I ran into the same problem.
One of my 4 disks was updated OK, but not the other 3.
The utility reports something like:

Model ST32000542AS SN 5XW1HE9S FW CC34 on Intel ICH7 Bus 0 Device 0
Model matched, no firmware match! Will not download firmware!

*******
Model matched but firmware version is not compatible
*******

Same thing with both the Windows utiltity and the bootable CD.
What IS this?

Regards

Hi.

Perhaps worth noting...
The disk that DID update has a serial number starting with 6XW.
The other 3 all starts with 5XW.
Could there be some kind of CC34 "subversions" in circulation?

Regards

Hi.

I logged a case with Seagate support about this.
Not one our later (really fast) I got this answer:

"Thank you for the information. We check your drives and there was no firmware update available for them. They have been already updated from the original version. The reason why it's still showing CC34 is because it was the original version and an update was performed on the field not in the factory."

But the clicking sound still continues, and I can't really tell witch drive makes it.

Regards

XBower wrote:

Hi. I logged a case with Seagate support about this. Not one our later (really fast) I got this answer: "Thank you for the information. We check your drives and there was no firmware update available for them. They have been already updated from the original version. The reason why it's still showing CC34 is because it was the original version and an update was performed on the field not in the factory." But the clicking sound still continues, and I can't really tell witch drive makes it. Regards

They are incorrect. Seagate has CC35 firmware on their website for these drives and I've read somewhere else that some LP drives are now shipping with CC37 as well but they don't have that available for download yet as it's probably a very minor revision. A lot of drives for some reason are not accepting the "automatic" firmware upgrade so you'll have to force it manually. I flashed my brand new Seagate LP 2GB's using this method and they are working perfectly so far in my NV+. No clicks and no issues but I have a lot more testing to do. Check out the following link and do exactly what they say and you'll get your updates done.

http://niallbest.com/seagate-2tb-st32000542as-cc35-firmware-upgrade/

I downloaded the iso image from this site and hooked my drives up via esata and a Vantec drive bay one at a time (had to reboot the computer every time though for each drive) and I had all four drives flashed in less than 30 minutes. I did the manual override and used the command line instructions they give (easy) and it worked. Hope that helps you out. Cheers!

P.S. I'm very impressed so far with these Seagates for noise, heat and vibration. I was expecting the worst for vibration noise and nada. They are whisper quiet so far with no vibration harmonics and running cool at 33c temps in my NV+. Using 4.1.7 T60 beta bios and of course, CC35 firmware in the drives.

James

Hey mates, i FINALLY found a sorta PERMANENT FIX for the clicking noise coming out of the seagate 2tb drives. i have RMA’d it twice and no to avail. its related to an idle thing, doesnt happen when your accessing it,. well im SURE you all didnt buy a 2tb drive just for games,im sure you download TORRENTS…so what you got to do is the follow :
1) Download any torrent client and install it
2) Set the SAVE path of your torrent files to the 2TB drive
3) SILENCE!
This is because the downloads use the disk and thus it never goes idle, its only a 5900rpm and will not affect it with heat or heavy power draw.
well the CC35 is no help here,looks like a technical manufacturing fault

If you dont download anything, just download a very small program and let it seed, so even the upload counts as disk activity and you will have no more noise.
funkybizkit_15@hotmail.com
contact me if you need any further clarifications.

bon chance~ !

Does anyone know what the root cause of the clicking/clunking issue is?

I just upgraded the 2nd drive in my Duo to a Seagate LP ST32000542AS 2tb drive. I get a light clunking sound every 5-10 seconds and the disk activity light on the front of the duo shows activity at the same time. I'd hate to go through all the effort of updating the firmware only to find I've got a different issue...

Thanks!
Wes Dunnington

Wesleydma – While I am far too technically lacking to answer your root cause of the clicking/clunking issue question, I can tell you about my experience.

I recently upgraded my NV+ from four Seagate 750 GB drives to four Seagate LP ST32000542AS 2 TB drives. The hot-swap expansion and sync process went exactly as it should, no problems. For my NV+ environment, I have been impressed with how much quieter and cooler my unit is running compared to the Seagate drives I replaced. My power consumption running went from around 54 watts to 28 watts, which also increased my UPS available run time by far more then I would have thought.

Once the sync process completed for all four drives and the volume was fully redundant, I began to hear that somewhat subtle metallic clink noise. Just as funkybizkit indicated, the noise would not occur when the disks were being accessed (which is why it never appeared when I was expanding the XRAID) it only intermittently occurs after the unit sits idle. Also, whenever the sound occurs, the NV+ front green activity LED light, indicating disc access, blinks. My NV+ is always on and I do not enable disk spin-down. All SMART reading indicated healthy drives, FW is CC34.

If you haven’t already, I found an incredible amount information on this issue out there on various forums, including Seagate’s, including a lot of speculation as to what the cause is. One post from a Seagate representative told another NV+ user with the same issue I am now having, that the ST32000542AS are not recommended by Seagate for use in NAS devices, the recommend their enterprise drives instead. This was also posted on other sites. However, I quickly dismiss this as these drives are on the HCL and I know the ReadyNAS staff take the list very seriously, thoroughly testing hardware before endorsing. Several sites say force the FW upgrade to CC35, many people say that solved their problem, but an equal amount say it did not. Another posting by a Seagate representative said the noise was normal if the SMART attributes (SeaTools) indicated a healthy drive. One consistent trend I found was those who had the clicking noise, later posted drive failures.

I decided to contact Seagate. I first called their technical support side and then their warranty support group. For both contacts I spoke with very knowledgeable, helpful and competent individuals. I was impressed because some had posted horror stories. The short version of my call: They ran all four serial numbers and told me I did not have to upgrade to CC35, my drives had the latest FW. The noise is not normal. These drives can be used in a NAS. Even though the drives show healthy in SeaTools, there could be hardware/mechanical problem which will not become evident until pending failure. They recommend sending the clanking drive(s) back for replacement. The warrant support gentleman was also very helpful and worked to find a replacement means that fit my needs; including sending all four drives back to receive four replacement drives. Seagate seems to have a liberal return practice, I did not have to first identify which drive is problematic. In the end, sending all the drives at once did to work for me, I am currently going through each drive to determine which one or ones are making the noise and then I will send back. When I purchased the drives I bought five, one to use as a hot spare, as I am a home user and my content size grows very slowly. With four 2 TB drives, I will be living with these for sometime to come.

This is my experience to date, I do not know how accurate the information I was given is as there is much posted out there to the contrary, although if things change I will certainly add to the post.

If one of the Jedi Council members has more insight and could shed light on this, I am sure there are many out there with similar issue.

Hope this helps.

It has been about a month thought I would provide an update, perhaps those searching the forum about these drives (like I was some months back) might be helped from my experience. I swapped out the clicking drive with the extra drive I had purchased, Seagate eventually sent me a refurbished drive in replacement of the RMA’d drive (which has now become my spare). Have had no further clicking issues, as I mentioned before I am impressed with how much cooler and quieter the NV+ is running. Also, the slower disk speed on the sparc processor has not been all that noticeable to any of us, even when we are pushing it. Overall, given the limited 2TB disks on the HCL to choose from, I am please with these drives. Originally, I did not want to go with these ‘Green’ drives, especially considering their early track record; I nearly purchased Seagate Enterprise 2TB drives not on the HCL and was going to roll the dice, but PapaBear wisely steered me back to the trusted and well tested HCL.

That all having been said, there is one noticeable performance drawback I have been experiencing that did not occur with the 750GB Seagate drives my NV+ came with and ran flawlessly for years. When these ST32000542AS drives are not accessed for a given period of time, it seems as if these drives go into some form of a sleep or modified shutdown mode, which becomes noticeable when any of the networked systems (wired or wireless) tries to access the drives, there is a delay before the requested data appears, even though it is in seconds, it is noticeable and never occurred with the previous Seagate drives. My NV+ is always on and I do not use disk spin down, FW 4.1.7 [1.00a043], X-RAID. Audibly, during this latency period, you can hear that the disks are already spinning, although the drives go from quiet spinning to the brief sound of drive head activity ramping up simultaneously on all four drives in a far more chaotic way then even when reading or writing large amounts of data. Another related issue during this period of not accessing the NV+, is the networked computers (both Vista and Window7) which have mapped drives to the NV+, will visually show the drive disconnected/red-x’d. However, as soon as you open the drive or launch an application which accesses the drive, there is a delay, and then everything comes right up as is should. This never occurred with the previous Seagate drives. When I was researching the clicking noise, I did read some discussions about these ST32000542AS and how they park the heads when the drives are not accessed and how it was causing various issues, especially with RIAD controllers. However, I had understood the Seagate FW upgrade to have corrected this, even the Seagate Technician I spoke with and asked did not indicate any issue in a RAID and certainly Netgear endorses these drives and has not posted anything to the contrary, I am sure they would have experience these issues in their extensive testing. As I said before, there is so much out there about these drives, much of which contradicts itself, it is hard to know what is factual, which is why I thought I would share my experience. Hope it helps.

Update: A couple of weeks ago in the late afternoon, my NV+ started making the familiar metallic clinking noise. I checked the SMART readings on all the disks and everything was as it should. No later than the next morning, I had an email message saying, “Disk fail event occurred on SATA channel 2. If the failed disk is used in a RAID level 1, 5, or X-RAID volume, please note that volume is now unprotected, and an additional disk failure may render that volume dead.” I quickly removed disk two, and put the refurbished (or as Seagate calls them Certified Repaired) hard drive in that I had received from the first disk failure (see previous posts). I RMA’d the disk and within about five days Seagate sent me another refurbished hard drive. The failed hard drive never gave any indication of pending failure, just the metallic clicking noise identical to the previously failed drive. The drive had about 2, 300 hours of continuous operation with only three start/stop cycles. So that is two drive failures out of five hard drives. Not good. After the refurbished drive was running in the NV+ for several days, I did notice something worth sharing. The refurbished drive ran on average about five degrees Fahrenheit higher, and the NV+ was consuming about three watts more then with the previous drive. It appears to me that Seagate has made a firmware change in these drives, although the drive still shows firmware CC34. Not sure what change was made, perhaps others know.

I have been running for about three weeks now with the three original drives and the one refurbished drive. Yesterday, the NAS started intermittently metallic clinking noise. I couldn’t believe it. Out of frustration I called Seagate warranty today. I politely explained my frustration that two out of five disks had failed and now it appears a third is about to go. I told them I had no idea which one it was as all the SMART readings were fine. I also said I was not going to spend hours pulling each drive individually and test them. The warranty person did not hesitate; he said they would replace my three remaining disks. He said they were going to overnight me three drives at no charge. All I have to do is return the three existing drives in their prepaid shipping box. While Seagate has been very responsive each time I have had need of their help, I am sorry to say, that I am now wishing I had not purchased these Green Drives. I see now the Barracuda XT ST32000641AS 2TB 6Gb/s 64 MB are on the HCL; these were the drives I originally wanted but at that time they were not on the list. I would recommend considering these.