Re: Some Seagate hard drive users at risk

On Thu, 23 Jul 2009, Andy Civil wrote:

> I was going to post about it myself, but if your post didn't protect me, then 
> how was my post going to protect others? The sad fact is, normal people don't 
> know what brand of hard disk they have... they have lives to lead! And it's 
> not sufficiently likely for you to go digging in your computer to check.
>
> Anyway, thanks for trying, Brett, and if anyone reading this has suffered the 
> problem, I have successfully un-bricked my drive, and could help others do 
> the same.

Well this is quite ironic! In responding to your post with the little "how 
to see your drive's firmware, serial number and model" I discovered that 
both my RA1D 1 drives in my mail/web server needed FW upgrades! I don't 
recall that the 500 GB models were listed when I originally posted, or 
else I just plain missed them.

I made a bootable CD from the Seagate-provided FW updater, booted it, and 
it patched both drives in less than a minute. So, cross fingers, I'm safe 
from this problem now.

Thanks Andy - spreading the word made a difference.

In my original posting I wrote:

>> Question for the list: is it desirable to build redundant RAID arrays like 
>> RAID 1 with similar drives from different manufacturers to minimize the 
>> risk of problems like this, or does that lead to other problems?

Not getting an answer, I am going to answer my own question here. I 
suggest, given that both my RAID 1 drives were potential bricks, that it 
is best to use DIFFERENT manufacturer's drives (of the same size) when you 
are depending on the higher availability that RAID 1 is supposed to offer.

Brett
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