Seagate IronWolf 10TB (ST10000VN0004) vs LSI IT firmware controllers

DGenerateKane

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Sep 4, 2014
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In the linked Synology topic, someone says it has to be updated from a PC. Is that the case with FreeNAS as well, or can I update the firmware from my FreeNAS box?
 

DGenerateKane

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Sep 4, 2014
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Well your FreeNAS box is a PC, so. :)

You can just boot the USB stick with the update on your FreeNAS server, do the update, then boot back into FreeNAS.
Heh, I'm guessing synology uses hardware raid, hence the need to use another PC. I wasn't sure though. I'm glad I don't have to pull all 8 of mine to update the firmware.
 

Quindor

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Sep 8, 2019
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@DGenerateKane in theory most FreeNAS boxes shouldn't be using RAID but controllers (either onboard or LSI/Avago IT) that expose direct ports which would mean you should be able to flash the drives while in the same box as you normally run FreeNAS on, just booted off the USB stick.


In other news, I've been in contact with Seagate and am currently communicating with their support/press team. As mentioned, my prime reason behind this topic and everything is to get this issue and the fix for it out there so that people who are suffering from it have a way to solve it. I'm hopeful response from Seagate will be positive and hopefully they can make the firmware available for everyone on their normal support page. Meanwhile all the response here has been great! I'm going to wait a little bit with the video/article (has been written) but it should be out soon. :)
 

SuperSpy

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May 26, 2015
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@Quindor any update to this? I've been trying to find someone in tech support that will do something other than just offer to just run SeaTool and RMA the drives, but haven't been getting anywhere.
 

Quindor

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@Quindor any update to this? I've been trying to find someone in tech support that will do something other than just offer to just run SeaTool and RMA the drives, but haven't been getting anywhere.
I've been working on this behind the scenes but no real updates to report. My drives have still had 0 errors since the firmware update and from what I'm reading from other people here, they're experience is the same except for 1 person but he seems to be having more issues with his drives.

I have been in contact with Seagate but their Press/Markering department and their response basically totally ignored everything I wrote. I wanted to get them a decent chance to reply to me before making a video about this, but seemingly they don't get it or at least it didn't get to the right people.

So sadly, I haven't gotten much further either. Maybe when I do actually make the video and release the article that I'll get a proper response (and hopefully the firmware becomes available on their normal support website). On the other hand, I'm not giant Tech YouTuber either, so we'll see. I just want to have this info out there for people suffering from the same issue.
 

Quindor

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Video and article released! Mentioned the forum here too because it was of great help! :D

Conclusion to this whole ordeal: Have 10TB Seagate IronWolf (pro) drives, update to the SC61 firmware

Currently it doesn't seem to be the case that other sizes are also affected by the same issue, although there have been reports of the 12TB model having the same problem. My best advice would still be to approach support and spam them with your issue.
 

DGenerateKane

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I pulled all eight of my drives out so I could flash the newer firmware finally. I should find out real soon if it fixed the issue or not, I'm doing everything I've done in the past that made one or more drives drop out quickly.

I still don't understand why Seagate released a new firmware update but didn't put it on their normal support site. Why hide an update?
 

Quindor

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Actually, I was checking right after publishing my video and article and it seems that at least for my serial numbers the firmware is now found on the public Seagate website! Maybe my complaining and contact I had with them did reach the right people in the end, hopefully it's not just for my serial numbers though, can someone verify that it's also listed for theirs?
 

DGenerateKane

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It was listed for one of my drives that I checked.
 

Pheran

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Now I have a conundrum. So, I'm RMAing one of my Ironwolfs because it has a ton of reallocated sectors (13K+). I have a spare here that I got back from a previous RMA. So, I figured I'll just plug in the spare and upgrade the firmware to SC61 and be good to go. Except I've realized that this spare is different from all my other 10TB Ironwolfs. All my previous drives have model number ST10000VN0004-1ZD101. This spare that I have has model number ST10000VN0004-2GS11L. Not only that, it looks physically different. The other drives all have a flat end opposite the connectors. This one has beveled edges on the lower half of that side. The new drive still shows SC60 firmware, but the firmware download here specifically mentions part 1ZD101-500. I don't know if it's safe to use it on this 2GS11L drive. Has anyone seen this before?

EDIT: I see that @supercoolfool has at least one of these drives, but I'm unclear if his was good or not.
 
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Pheran

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I opened a ticket with Seagate support asking if there's a firmware upgrade available for the 2GS11L version of this drive. I'll see if it gets me anywhere or not.

They came back and said there's no newer firmware for the 2GS11L version of the ST10000VN0004 drive. I guess only time will tell if it times out like the 1ZD101 drives on SC60 firmware do.
 

Pheran

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Another thing happened that surprised me - I figured I'd get back another 2GS11L drive from RMAing my second bad Ironwolf. But that's not what happened, instead I got back a 1ZD101 drive, but this one was already upgraded to SC61, it even said SC61 right on the label.
 

DGenerateKane

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Well, after almost two months on the new firmware, I'd say the problem is gone for me. I did everything I knew of that would cause one or more drives to fault including multiple scrubs, and I haven't had a single drive fault. Seagate sure took their sweet time fixing this problem though. I could have used this firmware two years ago and saved me many a headache.
 

Quindor

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Well, after almost two months on the new firmware, I'd say the problem is gone for me. I did everything I knew of that would cause one or more drives to fault including multiple scrubs, and I haven't had a single drive fault. Seagate sure took their sweet time fixing this problem though. I could have used this firmware two years ago and saved me many a headache.
Yeah, I can fully understand that! I think it's been difficult for them, I myself have been running some of these drives for 2 years already and never had an issue but it suddenly did surface in my new system. So maybe they too had issues tracking down the exact cause, still, although I'm willing to give them some leeway in that regard, they should have at least had something known about it, even if it was just a knowledge article stating "if you have this and this and such, you might encounter this issue, please call us". Would have saved them a lot of grace in my opinion.

Whatever the case, I think Synology blacklisting the drive (turning off write cache) really accelerated the issue and Seagate made sure a fix became available. Very sad something like that is needed to get this finally fixed. Because of my YouTube channel I have some media contacts with Seagate but even through those channels, no help was offered and I had to "fix" it myself, that's also why I started this topic here and made my article and video about it. That's been viewed over 3000 times now and I believe this forum thread even more, so hopefully this information is out there now.

If Seagate reads this, if you have a problem with your drives, don't hide it, be open about it, work on it, enlist us if you have to and fix it. The IronWolf series have been great drives for me but this does cast a dark shadow on buying advice if you handle problems like this.
 
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