ERC / TLER not working on Seagate NAS drives with certain firmware

[scurrier]

The drive model is Seagate NAS 4TB ST4000VN000. Error recovery control (aka ERC, aka TLER) works on firmware SC43 drives, but not on SC46 drives.

When I run smartctl -l scterc <drive> on the SC43 drives, they have error recovery control turned on and set to 7 seconds. The SC46 drives have it turned totally off. So I try to turn it on on the SC46 drives.
smartctl -l scterc,70,70 <drive>
...it seems to enable it temporarily, but the setting does not survive a reboot.

Anyone know why there would be this difference between the firmware versions?
Anyone know how I can turn on error recovery control permanently on the SC46 drives?

These are marketed as NAS drives by Seagate. Am I being unreasonable thinking this feature should be enabled by default or at least configurable and persistent across reboots?

 

[scurrier]

Miracle of miracles, I updated the firmware on my LSI 2308 controller and that seems to have allowed the TLER settings to stick. I have no idea why. I did this controller firmware upgrade as part of another issue investigation. I only tried to change the TLER setting one time before when it didn't stick, so it's also possible that it was just a transient issue as well. We'll never know.

For future reference, here's the firmware version I upgrade from and to.
20.00.02.00-IT to 20.00.07.00-IT

 

[scurrier]

Whoops, scratch that. I forgot to power cycle instead of just reboot. Power cycling still kills this setting. Still looking for any insight anyone might provide.

 

[Chris Moore]

Have you checked to see if there is a newer version of the firmware? Alternatively, it might be possible to load the 'older' version of the firmware that has error recovery enabled.
There is also the possibility of running a script to turn this on when the system boots. You might take a look at these scripts:

Github repository for FreeNAS scripts, including disk burnin
https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...for-freenas-scripts-including-disk-burnin.28/

 

[scurrier]

Seagate's site claims that no firmware is available for two drive serials I tested, one of each firmware.

I'd love to fix the root cause of the issue instead of resorting to scripts which inevitably are harder to support long term.

 

[Jailer]

Anyone know why there would be this difference between the firmware versions?
Anyone know how I can turn on error recovery control permanently on the SC46 drives?

These would be great questions for Seagate technical support.

 

[Chris Moore]

Seagate's site claims that no firmware is available for two drive serials I tested, one of each firmware.

I'd love to fix the root cause of the issue instead of resorting to scripts which inevitably are harder to support long term.

This script:
set_hdd_erc.sh : Configure TLER/ERC setting on drives
Is super easy to run and should do the trick for you. It just runs through all the drives and turns it on for the drives that support it.
Set it to run as an init script: http://doc.freenas.org/11/tasks.html#init-shutdown-scripts

 

[scurrier]

Thanks guys. Those both sound like good options.

 

[Chris Moore]

The drive model is Seagate NAS 4TB ST4000VN000

Both types of firmware came default on regular, retail purchased, drives?

 

[Stux]

I’d be contacting Seagate...

 

[scurrier]

Hard to remember, but I think some of the drives were warranty replacements from Seagate after some brand new drives failed during my burn-in process.

I'll either call Seagate or run the script. Still, I'm kind of stunned.