Do my new hard drives need a firmware flash for better FreeNAS usage?

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Norlig

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Hi,

bought myself 4x Seagate Backup Plus HUB 8TB on Black Friday.
I've taken the harddrives out of the enclosures and inside there are some "Seagate Barracuda Compute" drives.
Model: ST8000DM004
P/N: 2CX188-568

On my current harddrives (WD Green 4TB) , I have flashed the drives to turn off the head rest (Load_Cycle_Count) .

Is something like that suggested to do on the Seagate Drives? Is it possible?
Any other firmware changes suggested to these drives?

Thanks.


 

Chris Moore

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You can check it out on the Seagate website, but my experience with the external drives is that there will be no firmware update available.

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Norlig

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You can check it out on the Seagate website, but my experience with the external drives is that there will be no firmware update available.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using Tapatalk

I have taken the harddrives out of the external enclosures.
 

Chris Moore

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It is great that you got the Barracuda drives. I have seen some people that got Archive drives and that would be no good.

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m0nkey_

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Ugh. These will be SMR disks for sure and must be avoided when using with ZFS. They will be horribly slow. Unless it's a BarraCuda Pro, then it'll be fine.
 

Chris Moore

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Ugh. These will be SMR disks for sure and must be avoided when using with ZFS. They will be horribly slow. Unless it's a BarraCuda Pro, then it'll be fine.
What makes you say that? Seagate has a separate model line for the SMR drives.

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Norlig

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My only use will be HTPC media Storage, doesn't need to be excessively fast.

Just wondered if I there were any firmware settings (like the WD Greens) I could/should do with these, so as to not wear down a specific component inside.
 

Chris Moore

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My only use will be HTPC media Storage, doesn't need to be excessively fast.

Just wondered if I there were any firmware settings (like the WD Greens) I could/should do with these, so as to not wear down a specific component inside.
I have been using the Seagate Desktop drives in my home NAS from the start back in 2011. I have been happy with the results. I didn't make any changes to mine. I have 2TB, 4TB and 5TB models running right now. I would expect that the 8TB model would be as reliable. I do suggest you keep a spare handy because any drive can fail any time.

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ST8000DM004 are shingled, probably able to get way with it if your data is mostly write once.
 
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Source? The datasheet doesn't say anything about that.

While I can't be 100% sure since Seagate goes out of its way not to mention SMR, I'm 99.99% sure since according to the specs that model uses 2TB platters, SMR it's currently the only way to achieve that density, AFAIK the largest PMR drive is the HGST 12TB Helium, and that one has 8 platters, so it's 1.5TB/platter, HGST just announced a 14TB SMR drive and it's "just" 1.75TB/platter.
 

Chris Moore

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While I can't be 100% sure since Seagate goes out of its way not to mention SMR, I'm 99.99% sure since according to the specs that model uses 2TB platters, SMR it's currently the only way to achieve that density, AFAIK the largest PMR drive is the HGST 12TB Helium, and that one has 8 platters, so it's 1.5TB/platter, HGST just announced a 14TB SMR drive and it's "just" 1.75TB/platter.
Seagate and HGST are two entirely different companies, no correlation.

Here is the Product Manual for the Seagate Barracuda Compute drive:
https://www.seagate.com/www-content...a-fam/barracuda-new/en-us/docs/100805918d.pdf
I spent some time looking and can't find any indication that it is shingled.

Here is the link to the Product Manual for the Seagate Archive drive which absolutely is shingled:
https://www.seagate.com/www-content...seagate-archive-hdd/en-us/docs/100795782a.pdf
In this document they plainly state in section 1.2, page 6, that they are using SMR.

Seagate is not trying to hide SMR from people. I don't think the Barracuda (pro or not) is shingled.
 
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Chris Moore

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bought myself 4x Seagate Backup Plus HUB 8TB on Black Friday.
To me, it looks like you got a good deal there. I hope they work well for you.
 
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Seagate and HGST are two entirely different companies, no correlation.

Yes, but that doesn't change the fact that a 2TB PMR platter is currently not technologically possible, I just used HGST as an example, if you want a Seagate example , the Ironwolf Pro 10TB is PMR and has 7 platters, which makes it 1.43TB/platter, even lower density than HGST.
 

danb35

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Chris Moore

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if you want a Seagate example , the Ironwolf Pro 10TB is PMR and has 7 platters, which makes it 1.43TB/platter, even lower density than HGST.
That still proves nothing as it is a different product line. Look at the documentation. Why would they lie?
 
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That must be why the product manual for the Archive drives says:

That was the first model, since potential buyers were less likely to buy a shingled drive, they stopped doing that in the newer models, here's another clue, look at introduction section on the datasheet for the barracuda and barracuda pro:

Barracuda Pro:
Perpendicular recording technology provides the drives with increased areal density.

Barracuda Compute:
TGMR recording technology provides the drives with increased areal density.

Archive drives:
TGMR recording technology provides the drives with increased areal density.



That still proves nothing as it is a different product line. Look at the documentation. Why would they lie?

Proves what they can do with PMR, they are not lying, just not mentioning SMR, they don't say it's PMR.
 

Chris Moore

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TGMR it a description of how the head works, not how the data is arranged into tracks.

I know, but if the disk is PMR why don't they say so, like on the Barracuda Pro?

I'm pretty sure I'm right, and made my case, so I'm done with this thread.
 

danb35

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I'm pretty sure I'm right, and made my case
Your case consists of "2 GB/platter is impossible without SMR" (citation needed) and "if it were other than SMR, Seagate would say so." You've also incorrectly stated that they try to hide when they're using SMR.

I don't know one way or the other, and have no dog in this fight, but I don't think you've come anywhere close to making a case for the conclusion you're drawing.
 
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