Seagate has a LOT of significant firmware issues, in and of themselves, not to mention the HD's being suspect since we can't accurately test them, for lack of better words, with this ongoing debacle where engineering doesn't seem to be on the same page as the product development teams.
Just look into the retail sector right now, and all the problems with firmware with affected 1, 1.5TB SATA II HD's,and it's hard to miss all the controversy, and doubt of product potential or realization.
They can't, or won't, fix the carrot in front of the cart, and vice-versa, and I can personally trace this trend back to November 2005, with the release of the 750GB SATA II HD's with "perpindicular' data mapping, which were simply Seagate's biggest marketing flub ever, bar none.
When our company began testing a preliminary order of those HD's, a lot of 680 of the 750's, their read/write performance was astonishingly AWFUL, especially when configured in RAID 1,0,5 stripes, apparently compounded further by the over-write nature of redundant and co-axial RAID data packets, especially in low registers. Crazy!
We had the Top Tier Seagate Partners 'crash squad' in our building for the better part of 4 days after that, and they tried, fruitlessly, to enable normal performance from those 750's with a barrage of firmware updates, FROM THE TOP of Seagate command structure it seemed, and they left with their tails waggin' limp-dicked, never to return with a fix.
Needless to say the company got Hitachi GST online next, and boy, did those guys save the day, putting in 18+-hour days and nights, until our storage situation was squared away, albeit with 500GB E7K1000 Hitachi SATA II HD'S in place vs the 750GB Seagates, and we never went back.
We never have a problem with Hitachi GST product, in fact it always performs better than spec,and the firmware never needs changing, plus reliability is bar none the best there is, across the board. Hitachi GST storage from that debacle is still on line here, and I think I've seen or heard of zero drive failures, especially in the "cold rooms" where the servers live...often enough to believe those who tell me that, people in power, not just the IT guys and gals.
It's one thing to be let down because of over-reaching one's goals, but it's quite something else when the products are not ready for Prime-Time in the 1st place, to wit the current fiasco's with the 1, 1.5, and presumably with 2TB HD's to come from Seagate, a company we will never have a reason to do business with ever again, it seems.
WTF is the reasoning behind "fixing the product after it's released, not before, or during development?" No comprendo, amigos!
Western Digital is making some good things happen these days, what with their Black Series, notebook and Enterprise 3.5" varieties, and the GPower thing is here to stay--they invented it, and congratulations to them! WD has come a long way, in a short, critical time, and it's good to have them on the same page as the companies that need the HD support mechanisms in place, that is systems THAT WORK!
Where, my Lordie, did Seagate ever go wrong? Something caused the cookie to crumble, and they sure need a new chef, tuit suite mis amis!
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