Seagate ST2000DL003-9VT166

Well I'm glad to say I'm on my way to a solution. Thanks ReadyNAS members, Netgear and Seagate - though I'm sure it should have been easier. An escalation to Netgear L2 support confirmed the problem, and an escalation in Seagate got me to someone who could talk sense rather than read scripts. Seagate are Advance RMAing me 2 new drives.

These were actually 1.5TB drives ST1500DL003 9VT16L - but are identical to the 2TB models.

If anyone needs specific info to help them with this then I'm happy to help - just PM me. Then you won't have to do the "virtual" leg work I did :-)

Finally got 2 new drives - advanced RMA via help from Seagate support. Couldn't find the CC3D firmware on Seagate site, so thanks to people here for posting the link. Swapped out drives one at a time, and all seems to be good. Let's hope it stays that way!! My observations from the debacle:
1. Don't accept "no" for an answer and escalate. Someone will help you eventually....
2. Be reasonable but be clear what you want - e.g. advanced replacements
3. HDD manufacturers need to get their act together....
4. Before you try to start syncing a new disk, TURN OFF DLNA, any backup, etc. Otherwise the disks end up thrashing (for me) and sync takes forever.

Having to plug the drive into a PC and then boot into DOS to upgrade firmware : NOT ACCEPTABLE. Not having the firmware pushed out (or at least notified) : NOT ACCEPTABLE. Not publishing on your website KNOWN problems and resolution : NOT ACCEPTABLE.

Let's be clear. HDD technology is well understood; there shouldn't even be a need for a HCL. SATA is SATA. I quite like the Readynas v2 product. But it's a consumer product, and consumers shouldn't have to do all this s**t.

The thing is that cheaper drives tend to be optimised for single drive non-RAID use. Some of these optimisations render some drives unsuitable for use in RAID arrays. HDD manufacturers tend to test their enterprise disks in RAID arrays under 24x7 heavy load and in WD's case the new WD RED in NAS units (I'm guessing probably not as heavy load as enterprise disks necessarily but adequate for what most consumers would use).

If you don't want to go through the hassle of choosing your own drives NetGear does sell ReadyNAS units with drives pre-installed.

While I wish that all hard drives would work in RAID arrays, the bottom line is that they just don't - this issue shows up in all NAS forums that I've looked at. If there's any money to be saved in taking a feature needed for RAID out, then it will be. The volume sales are the single-drive market drive.

I agree that the HCL doesn't work very well, and that this set of issues continue to plague the NAS user community. WDC's creation a drive line for consumer raid is a good sign (independent of what you think of WDC generally), hopefully Seagate will follow suit. Another option is to simply forego RAID and stick with JBOD. Systems with pre-installed drives are of course available, but there is a price premium there as well.

I agree with what you're saying, but the only problems I've had running RAID in the past was WDC TLER (which you used to be able to disable). Otherwise a drive in a consumer NAS should be no different than on in a PC, probably even better ventilated in a NAS.

AFAIK there are NO specific requirements from a drive for RAID to work. SATA and associated protocols are well documented and understood. The problem is as always, that if someone doesn't conform to spec no-one wants to point the finger.

BTW the drives I had to return ARE on the HCL.

I agree that the HCL is weak. Some drives got on there that probably shouldn't, some good drives were almost certainly missed. Netgear has occasionally removed drives later, though that of course creates support issues for folks who purchased those drives when they were on the list.

As far as RAID goes, TLER was a big one. The load-cycle count problem for the WDC green drives comes to mind. On the physical level, vibration from other disks can degrade seeking and throughput. Spinning up also creates some issues, especially if the drive stops spinning on its own. The extra power needed during spin-up can stress the NAS supply, and of course the spin-up takes some time. Some of the ReadyNAS attempt to spin up the drives in a staggered fashion, but of course that won't work if the drive is spinning itself down w/o telling the NAS.

I don't think any of this stuff violates the SATA spec (though since my company isn't a member, I can't actually see the full spec).

You can see some more extensive reviews on what WDC did with the red drives here: http://www.storagereview.com/western_di ... w_wd30efrx, http://www.anandtech.com/show/6157/west ... he-premium

The hardware compatibility list for the Ultra 2+ still has these drives. My U2P is no longer working and I'm now wondering if it's these drives rather than the chassis.

My first post here. This thread has been very helpful for me, but not it seems for Seagate or NetGear.

I have a ReadyNAS Due fitted with two Seagate drives. It came with a pre-fitted Seagate ST32000542AS and I then got a ST2000DL003-9VT166-301 drive with CC32 firmware as part of a NetGear UK promotion at the time. It seemed a good deal. However, both Seagate drives gave up in my ReadyNAS Duo last week. Netgear agreed to RMA the pre-fitted Seagate ST32000542AS drive, but are prevaricating about the promotional ST2000DL003-9VT166-301 drive with CC32 firmware.

The replacement drive arrived today and it is a ST2000DL003-9VT166-301 drive with CC32 firmware manufactured on 18 July 2011. I am a bit miffed. Why would NetGear send out a replacement drive they know to be inappropriate for their own hardware? It beggars belief.

Two things:
1. Don't bother installing the drive - RMA it. It might not drop out for ages if installed, but it will eventually...
2. Under UK law the "promotional drive" - i.e. anything advertised and supplied as part of the contract - IS part of the contract. i.e. it has the same warranty as the main product (unless otherwise specified). Assuming that you have the paper trail for the drive Netgear should immediately RMA it. Or to put it another way, if you were to return the product they'd want the "free" drive back too!

The reason the replacement drive is a 301 is that neither Netgear NOR Seagate will publicly (or it seems internally) document the problems. As per my experience, both denied any problems @ L1 and L2 support. Shame on them (points finger).

Just make sure they're paying for the additional postage costs both ways :-)

I suggest contacting Netgear support and telling them you are not satisfied with the replacement drive before you start another RMA on it. There might be a simpler way to exchange it, and of course you'd want to hear what models are available as part of the process.