Seagate ST2000DL003-9VT166

Here is an email response I recieved last night:

We have done some investigating on the drives that you have. The part number that you have is not able to update to CC3C or CC3D. We do currently have drives available that come with this firmware. Part of the problem is that you are running standard desktop drives in a Raid environment and they are going to fail at a much higher rate than a drive that is designed for a Raid environment. I have the same Model number in my home computer with a single drive and have been running it for 2 years without an issue. Here is what we can do. I put notes in your case that we can replace your drives with Part # 9VT166-302. These drives will come with firmware version CC3C or CC3D. CC3C can be updated to CC3D. The only reason they would have CC3C over CC3D is if they left the factory before the update. I have no way of knowing when the drives left the factory. Please call in, go to the warranty department and replace the drives with the Part # that you need for your NAS. Let us know if we can be of any further assistance.

I will let you know how my call to warranty department goes today.

netwerks wrote:

Here is an email response I recieved last night: We have done some investigating on the drives that you have. The part number that you have is not able to update to CC3C or CC3D. We do currently have drives available that come with this firmware. Part of the problem is that you are running standard desktop drives in a Raid environment and they are going to fail at a much higher rate than a drive that is designed for a Raid environment. I have the same Model number in my home computer with a single drive and have been running it for 2 years without an issue. Here is what we can do. I put notes in your case that we can replace your drives with Part # 9VT166-302. These drives will come with firmware version CC3C or CC3D. CC3C can be updated to CC3D. The only reason they would have CC3C over CC3D is if they left the factory before the update. I have no way of knowing when the drives left the factory. Please call in, go to the warranty department and replace the drives with the Part # that you need for your NAS. Let us know if we can be of any further assistance. I will let you know how my call to warranty department goes today.

thats more like what i would expect.

I also mentioned that they need to document this for further issues. The good news is that we have it documented here so people can reference this issue when calling in as I have done.

Seagate will have to do better if they want to keep selling to the consumer NAS market. One reason I like the WD Red approach is that it eliminates this support headache.

Anyway, RAID shows up in desktop computers also, so all consumer drives should be designed to work with RAID.

I called Seagate again and referenced the escalation number in this thread (thanks mdgm) and they are now working with me on getting me drives with CC3D firmware. Hopefully after a few of these cases it will be easier for other people.

Same kind of problem for me with my Ready NAS Ultra 6.

During one year and an half I have the following X-RAID2 disk configuration: two Samsung HD154UI (FW ?), three Segeate ST2000DL003-9VT166-301 (FW CC32) an one Samsung HD203WI (FW 1AN10003). The Raidiator version is the x86 4.21.
The last week, I bought two Seagate ST2000DM001-9YN164 (FW CC4H) to extend my storage space. I go for a one year postdoc tomorrow at the other side of the world and my NAS capacity was a bit small to backup and store all my previous work.
Starting here, it's the drama.
1) The first remplacement of one of the HD154UI goes well, but during the reconstruction of the second one, a ST2000DL003-9VT166 has been annoced as dead.
2) The testing of all drives with Seatool (Samsung was bougth by Segate last year) is OK.
3) The reinsertion of the last removed HD154UI allows me to access to data again after a resynchronisation, but the NAS appaers in unprotected state in the readyNas status beside the fact that none of the drives is marked as dead.
4) I try again to put my second ST2000DM001-9YN164 (formated and partition table destroyed) in place of the HD154UI and as soon as the drive is mounted, the same ST2000DL003-9VT166 is annonced as dead

Then I do a factory reset with the two Seagate ST2000DM001-9YN164, three Segeate ST2000DL003-9VT166 (FW CC32) an one Samsung HD203WI, update to the lastest Raidiator version published (x86 4.22). No problem appears anymore.
At this moment, I think it OK, I just have the time to copy the data dispatched on many drives before my fly. But according to the Murffy law, a new problem must appear: this night, I have got a ST2000DL003-9VT166 declared dead (a different one this time) during the copy. I restart the NAS and now the resynchronisation runs. I think no error will be found and I can continue copy data until the next fake death of a ST2000DL003-9VT166, but I do not have time anymore to play with that.

Here is my current experiment with those disks. A curious thing I have noted during this experiment is that I never have error when my NAS contains different disk size (2*1.5To+4*2To or 1*1.5To+5*2To)

Daveman wrote:

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

After a failed RMA and ending up with the same disk (certified repaired hdd at that) and on top of that paying for shipping costs and fees, it finally looks like Seagate is going to fix my issue by sending me a new disk. It looks like I will receive a new build drive (9VT166-302). So after a lot of mails back and fourth, I can (hopefully) say kudos to Seagate for taking care of me as a customer and cleaning up this mess.

ebruse that is good to hear.

filou you need to get those CC32 drives replaced as advised by beisser earlier in the thread. Until you do the known issue with those drives will continue to reoccur.

beisser wrote:

netwerks wrote: Here is an email response I recieved last night: We have done some investigating on the drives that you have. The part number that you have is not able to update to CC3C or CC3D. We do currently have drives available that come with this firmware. Part of the problem is that you are running standard desktop drives in a Raid environment and they are going to fail at a much higher rate than a drive that is designed for a Raid environment. I have the same Model number in my home computer with a single drive and have been running it for 2 years without an issue. Here is what we can do. I put notes in your case that we can replace your drives with Part # 9VT166-302. These drives will come with firmware version CC3C or CC3D. CC3C can be updated to CC3D. The only reason they would have CC3C over CC3D is if they left the factory before the update. I have no way of knowing when the drives left the factory. Please call in, go to the warranty department and replace the drives with the Part # that you need for your NAS. Let us know if we can be of any further assistance. I will let you know how my call to warranty department goes today. thats more like what i would expect.

I finally got the second set of replacement drives. These are 302 drives and says on the label that they have cc3c firmware. Am I ok with using this firmware on a 302 drive or do I need to update them to cc3d?

I just wanted to contribute my recent experience, since this thread has been enormously useful in getting me to where I am today.

I have 5 x ST2000DL003 9VT166-301, all with f/w CC32. Over the last few months I've experienced them dropping out of the array, and prior to this week had already RMA'd 4 of them.

(In that time, I've also had my ReadyNAS replaced under warranty twice in an attempt to address this problem. Only recently has the firmware issue come to light - eventually one of the Netgear level 3 engineers identified this was the likely issue. My experience of Netgear support to date has been very good.)

I raised a case with Seagate at the beginning of the week, but received a polite reply saying that if no fault is found in a device that has been returned to them, it will not be replaced, and that they cannot guarantee that a replacement drive will have a particular firmware version.

Then I found this thread, and yesterday had a useful Twitter exchange with @AskSeagate, who created a new case for me, and advised that I needed to replace my drives with P/N 9VT166-302. This morning I spoke to their warranty department, who have promised to attach a note to each RMA order I raise, indicating the drive is to be replaced with P/N 9VT166-302.

I've just returned two of my drives. With each, I've included a letter, asking that it be replaced with P/N 9VT166-302, and including the case number, and reference to my Twitter exchange. I've also emailed the warranty department with my RMA order numbers.

I'll let this thread know how I get on.

ian