Seagate ST2000DL003-9VT166

I contacted SeaGate support's Twitter account (@AskSeaGate) and they suggested to give SeaGate support a call:
00.800.4732.4283 (in the EU) or http://www.seagate.com/support/contact-support/

mdgm wrote:
NAS users buy lots of disks so can have lots of disks (spending hundreds of dollars to purchase these) and over time need to purchase new disks to expand arrays etc. SeaGate needs to do something about this or I'm sure some users will be more likely to consider other drive brands when it comes to their next drive purchase.

I am one of those. Seagate had been my preferred brand for almost 30 years. However, the issues with the new series of drives had me begin to doubt them. Last year when I started to expand the volumes in my two NAS units using 3TB drives, I went with Hitachi. However, my second preferred drive over the past decades has stepped up to the plate with a new series of drives. When WD released their red label drives aimed an NAS uses, it seems to have hit a home run. Right now they are hard to find and expensive, but I think once they ramp up to full production the prices will come down. I got my first one the other day as part of a combo package and am going to see how it does.

I have not purchased a Seagate drive in two years and have not recommended them for the last year. (As some may have noted in some of my posts). One of the saving graces that Seagate had was their standing by their drives, but this firmware issue needs to be addressed or they will definitely lose market share. The memory of users in this area is decades.

I think it's time for Netgear to step up to the plate and help with a solution.

From my perspective, I bought a NAS device with disks on Netgear's compatibility list. Then, retroactively, Netgear declared those disks incompatible. Sure, Seagate disks had a firmware bug. But it's also true that Netgear's compatibility testing had a bug, too, in that it didn't detect the Seagate problem.

We've all cut Netgear slack because we understand this is a complex world and, sometimes, crap happens.

We're all struggling to get Seagate to do what Netgear said Seagate was going to do. If Netgear doesn't want to gain a reputation that you can't trust its compatibility list because it reserves the right to retroactively declare devices incompatible and then leaves its customer stranded, it needs to do something. Because right now, we're stranded.

@AskSeaGate from Twitter advised me "Anytime RAID involved w/ RMA, call rather than web. State this is for a RAID enviro. As for CC3C/CC32 = 512vs4k, no FW upgrade path".

I called Seagate regarding the CC32 firmware and had a long discussion with technical support. Their response after talking with the firmware engineer is that the CC32 version does not have a known RAID issue, and therefore there is no firmware update for this version. However, I have three CC32 drives that have all experienced the RAID “hang up” problem.

Beisser, has Netgear observed this issue with CC32 drives? Has this been communicated to Seagate? If it was proven the problem exists for CC32 drives, maybe they would release a firmware update.

On a positive note, when you RMA a drive in the U.S., they will not send you the same drive back so there is a chance to receive newer drives (there is still no way to specify a particular firmware version for the replacement drives). It may be different for other countries.

Dave

The bug is present on CC32. CC3D firmware is needed and this won't install on CC32 drives. Presumably SeaGate didn't bother to update firmware for CC32 drives as they consider CC32 drives to be too old. SeaGate should communicate better amongst itself on this issue. They should have updated their internal CC32 notes so their support reps could look up that firmware and see the RAID issue referred to. Sounds like they haven't.

Again this is a serious problem where they have a bug in their firmware and they are unwilling to provide an easy solution for the end user to get a satisfactory resolution despite informing beisser of a policy to do so.

Hi Everybody,

I recently bought a Seagate ST2000DL003-9VT166-570 BEFORE I saw this thread!

It has Firmware CC98 and a datecode = 12441. Being a -570, I assume this is a newer drive than the -301 drives with the CC32/CC3C issue.

Can somebody please confirm that this drive is newer and does not suffer from the issue described in this thread?

Why do they keep the same basic model number and change the heck out of the drive/firmware?

Many thanks, John.

Try contacting @AskSeaGate on Twitter or give SeaGate a call and refer to @mdgmnas on twitter

I just did an advance RMA for 4 drives and they sent me the same rev cc32 drives as a replacement! They are now telling me that they don't guarantee firmware in an RMA. I referred to the escalation reference # < REMOVED BY MODERATOR > you posted, sent them a link to this thread and they were able to connect the dots between tech support and warranty about what the issue was.

Since they "can't guarantee the firmware" they are still going to try and manually walk the issue through and find me some drives with cc3d firmware. If they can't, they agreed to send me some Seagate Barracuda XT ST32000641AS as a swap out instead.

The problem as you state is that this is not documented and they are handling this on an exception case basis but not documenting it anywhere so everytime a cal comes in unless you know what you can really explain the issue and point to these referneces you will just get the runaround.

Will keep you informed.

hey guys. i will try to forward this info through our internal channels..

cant be that they advise us to tell customer to request rma for cc3c drives and then dont do it.

i will keep you updated.