Seagate ST2000DL003-9VT166

PapaBear wrote:

When you are waiting for another company to solve a problem it is impossible to provide a date for anything. The original version of these drives may have worked fine. This happens when companies start "tweaking" their products and do not change the model numbers. This is one reason there is no longer an HCL for memory modules, they companies changed the chip arrangement and they were no longer reliable. The old ones worked, the new ones with the same model did not. This also happened with another manufacturer when they changed a drive around, but kept the same model number.

It was said further back up on the thread that Seagate has fixed its problem and that Netgear is working on a process that would document how to build a USB disk that would let us get the proper firmware onto our disks. Suggesting that Netgear provide a firm date for that documentation doesn't seem like asking for the impossible.

Look, I understand completely the complexity of the situation into which Netgear has chosen to enter when it's shipping disk-based hardware appliances and supporting folks who wish to choose their own disk drives. But that's a complexity Netgear has chosen to take upon themselves.

I could be screaming bloody murder about lost time/lost money and about the absurdity of retroactively declaring a device incompatible. I could be proclaiming that the only appropriate use for my ReadyNAS is as landfill.

I'm not. I still think that I bought the right device and fell into an unfortunate anomaly that happens in this complex age we live in. I think it's absolutely fair to be asking Netgear to do better in terms of support and communications to help us out of this anomaly. And, if they either won't or can't, that's an important data point.

It's not about PR, and remember we are all members here not staff unless it says Jedi, or Padiwan. Perhaps the reason they haven't pulled the drives from the HCL, is that not all versions of that model number are giving problems. The 9VT166 are, I believe but don't know for sure that the 9VT167 are but the 9VT168 to my understanding are not. They tried putting the product ID on the list for one of the WD drives, but within months they were no longer in the retail chain.

As a long term Seagate user, the last batch of drives I bought (3TB) were Hitachi. However, that model is no longer in the retail chain, which will take me back to SG for future drives.

the problem is, that the document we are working on needs to go through some testing first.
we wouldnt want you guys to accidentally fry your disks because we forgot some minor details.

im very sorry this is taking so long.

I understand the need for testing. Getting this done quickly is important, but being transparent about time frames is even more important.

Note: I've gone through 2 disk "failures" since my last posting on this subject. It's a good thing I went with 2 disk redundancy, otherwise I'd have lost the contents of my ReadyNAS, something that's happened once already.

Back in my professional IT life, I once went through storage problems from hell, when an array from a major vendor went through six weeks of the most bizarre and unfathomable problems. You really haven't lived until you're told that the survival of the contents of your array depends on nothing going wrong because all your redundancy has failed and you've exhausted the entire stock of drives east of the Mississsippi. My tolerance is rather high because of that experience, but please, get ths done as quickly as possible. And if you need testers, please ask. I'm willing to absorb some risk to get this over with as soon as possible.

hi guys.

sorry for the long wait. we had to wait for seagate for this.
but have a look here:
viewtopic.php?f=24&t=64510

beisser wrote:
hi guys. sorry for the long wait. we had to wait for seagate for this. but have a look here: viewtopic.php?f=24&t=64510

Thank you. I tried it and it failed. I connected one of my drives to an old dell machine and booted the CD I had created, pressed "D" to download the firmware into the drive and received the following message...

Model ST2000DL003-9VT166 SN 5YD41C75 FW CC32 on Intel ICH8R/ICH9R/ICH10R Bus 4 Device 0
Model Matched, No Firmware Match! Will Not Download Firmware!
********
  Model matched but firmware version is not compatible.
********

So, back to square one?

David

When you said that you were working on a USB flash drive to upgrade the drives, I was hoping that it would be something I could boot on my ReadyNAS and have it upgrade my drives in place.

Since it's not, here's what I'm going to have to do.

1) Buy a wired keyboard because FreeDOS won't work with my bluetooth keyboard on my Mac Pro.
2) Pull all the drives from my Mac.
3) Yank a disk from my ReadyNAS, take it out of the sled, and put into the Mac and see if it upgrades.
4) Repeat step three until done.

Of course, I'm not going to know for sure about compatibility between my Mac and the updater until I get a wired keyboard because you can't start the upgrade witout one.

In reality, step 3, for the first disk is less hard than otherwise because another disk just failed out of my array. And if it turns out the process isn't destructive to disks, it isn't all that horrible a process.

But "really not that horrible" is a very low bar to reach for.

dkerr wrote:

beisser wrote: hi guys. sorry for the long wait. we had to wait for seagate for this. but have a look here: viewtopic.php?f=24&t=64510 Thank you. I tried it and it failed. I connected one of my drives to an old dell machine and booted the CD I had created, pressed "D" to download the firmware into the drive and received the following message... Model ST2000DL003-9VT166 SN 5YD41C75 FW CC32 on Intel ICH8R/ICH9R/ICH10R Bus 4 Device 0 Model Matched, No Firmware Match! Will Not Download Firmware! ******** Model matched but firmware version is not compatible. ******** So, back to square one? David

ok thats interesting. let me forward this to the engineering guys and see what seagate has to say about this.

stannenb wrote:

When you said that you were working on a USB flash drive to upgrade the drives, I was hoping that it would be something I could boot on my ReadyNAS and have it upgrade my drives in place. Since it's not, here's what I'm going to have to do. 1) Buy a wired keyboard because FreeDOS won't work with my bluetooth keyboard on my Mac Pro. 2) Pull all the drives from my Mac. 3) Yank a disk from my ReadyNAS, take it out of the sled, and put into the Mac and see if it upgrades. 4) Repeat step three until done. Of course, I'm not going to know for sure about compatibility between my Mac and the updater until I get a wired keyboard because you can't start the upgrade witout one. In reality, step 3, for the first disk is less hard than otherwise because another disk just failed out of my array. And if it turns out the process isn't destructive to disks, it isn't all that horrible a process. But "really not that horrible" is a very low bar to reach for.

yeah even the usb key procedure would have involved booting a pc off of it.
its basically the same thing the iso does, just from usb, not cd.

dkerr wrote:

beisser wrote: hi guys. sorry for the long wait. we had to wait for seagate for this. but have a look here: http://www.readynas.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=64510 Thank you. I tried it and it failed. I connected one of my drives to an old dell machine and booted the CD I had created, pressed "D" to download the firmware into the drive and received the following message... Model ST2000DL003-9VT166 SN 5YD41C75 FW CC32 on Intel ICH8R/ICH9R/ICH10R Bus 4 Device 0 Model Matched, No Firmware Match! Will Not Download Firmware! ******** Model matched but firmware version is not compatible. ******** So, back to square one? David

I tried to upgrade the fimware and got the same error message ("Model Matched, No Firmware Match! Will Not Download Firmware!
"). I had two out of three ST2000DL003-9VT166 drives have the "DEAD DISK" problem and am anxious for a solution. I hope the new firmware gets sorted out.

Dave