Seagate Barracuda LP ST32000542AS 2TB 5900 RPM?


phenixdragon

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Since it seems that using my Samsung 2 TB drive as a parity causes issues once I have 3 data drives, I was think about using a Seagate Barracuda LP ST32000542AS 2TB 5900 RPM as my parity drive. I was debating about this or a WD Green Drive but it sounds like the Seagate has faster write speeds. What do you guys think?

 

Here is a link to my thread about my 2 TB Samsung: http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=8204.0

 

Basically it's just unusable as a parity.

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I have 2 of these drives and one 1.5T of same series.  All are data disks, not parity.

 

So far so good.  I would buy more if price was right.

 

The Hitachi 7200 is another 2T to consider.  That is what I am using for parity, as well as for a couple of data drives for my more frequently accessed disks.

 

Drive selection is a crap shoot.  You can get a bad one from anyone.  Whatever you buy, make sure you preclear it and look at the smart report carefully before moving it into your array.

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My pair of ST32000542AS are also behaving themselves (unpatched firmware). The Seagate parity drive is in my 5.0 beta test box so isnt getting much use but cant fault it.

 

My "production" box has a pair of previous generation Samsung drive SD203WI which is not showing any issues. Either as parity or data. 

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These drives do not seem to be built to last (even after patching). They do outperform a 5400rpm drive but I expect them to die shortly after the warranty period. The SMART data shows a lot of movement in Raw_Read_Error_Rate and Seek_Error_Rate. None of my other drives reports changes to those items. Also one of them gives off a loud click from time to time.

 

I plan to avoid this product.

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These drives do not seem to be built to last (even after patching). They do outperform a 5400rpm drive but I expect them to die shortly after the warranty period. The SMART data shows a lot of movement in Raw_Read_Error_Rate and Seek_Error_Rate. None of my other drives reports changes to those items. Also one of them gives off a loud click from time to time.

 

I plan to avoid this product.

 

Seagate drives report that data differently than most manufacturers. It's been that way with every Seagate drive I've seen, and I have them going back several generations. Clicking is always a bit ominous, and nothing to take lightly. However I've seen that it's something that's been addressed at times with a firmware update, so it may not be catastrophic.

 

Seagate certainly has to earn back its reputation after the debacle last year. Hitachi/IBM is STILL hurting from the DeathStars, and that was YEARS ago. I think Quantum essentially died as a brand after the Fireballs lived up to their name. The point is, that every manufacturer has had major issues. That's one of the reasons we want data redundancy, right?

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You are using the SMART report wrong. You're reading the RAW Values of the smart report which is never meant for anyone other than the manufacturer. You need to look at the nominal Current Value, Max Value, and Threshold Value for those fields. That is your mistake.

 

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I have updated three ST32000542AS 2TB and one has completely failed a few days later.  Two is awaiting to be precleared.  The failed one had been working since April 2010 and failed a few days after updating firmware from CC34 to CC35.  I also updated a ST31000520AS 1TB and preclear indicated one SMART attribute as failing.

 

I will see how the remaining two unused ST32000542AS fair after preclearing.

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I'm also using one of these as a parity drive.  I'm still running firmware CC34 because several attempts at forcing the firmware upgrade failed.  I'm just hoping for the best, and running regular parity checks.

 

I probably won't buy this drive again because of all the trouble I had with the firmware update.  I feel that installing a jumper on a WD EARS drive is much easier and cheaper (if you account for the time it takes), so I'm going to stick with WD Greens for the time being.  I hope Samsung comes out with a 'fixed' advanced format drive soon as well, since I generally like Samsung EcoGreens as well as WD Greens.

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I did create a new post but I finally was able to do a preclear on this Seagate but I came up with the following errors. I'm not sure if I will have any problems with it.

None of what you listed were errors, they were simply difference in the SMART report output from the initial SMART report at the start of the process and the one taken at the end.

 

About the only one meaningful to anyone but the manufacturer is the temperature, which went from 30 degrees to 32 during the pre-clear process.

 

Joe L

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I have 7 of these drives in my existing NAS, and I have another 4 ready to put into my unraid server (when I get round to building it!).  However, I'm always wary of hard drives and wonder whether I should get some WD Greens for any further requirements.  That said, what's this about installing a jumper on certain pins, where are the pins and where do I buy a jumper from? 

 

Sorry for the silly questions, but I need to order new HDDs in the next day or so.

 

Cheers

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I have 7 of these drives in my existing NAS, and I have another 4 ready to put into my unraid server (when I get round to building it!).  However, I'm always wary of hard drives and wonder whether I should get some WD Greens for any further requirements.  That said, what's this about installing a jumper on certain pins, where are the pins and where do I buy a jumper from?  

 

Sorry for the silly questions, but I need to order new HDDs in the next day or so.

 

Cheers

 

All WD Advanced Format drives (all EARS models and some EADS models) require a 2.54mm jumper on pins 7-8.  There are many places to buy the jumpers, but I would recommend buying them locally if possible, since otherwise you will probably pay more for shipping than you paid for the jumpers themselves!  I found a local shop that sold me a bag of 100 jumpers for $12.  At around 8 cents per jumper, I feel that's a fair price.

 

Also, be forewarned - you need to install this jumper before doing ANYTHING to the drive.  So don't run WDAlign, don't install it in an unRAID server or other computer.  Some users have reported that doing so made the drive unresponsive to the jumper, and it therefore had to be returned.

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hmm to be honest I'm erring away from the WD Greens, I really can't be bothered sourcing jumpers (plenty to buy on ebay from the good ol USA, but none in the UK), I guess I'm torn between the the Seagate and possibly the F3 samsung - HD203WI - which I can still buy over here.

 

Any thoughts on the two?  The Seagates have done me well so far tbh, with one drive failing in the first week of setting up my existing NAS.  Touch wood no problems since, although I made a BIG mistake and bought them in one batch, from one retailer (it was 7 of them in one hit, 11 months old).  One of them seems to click sometimes too, so I need to get the unRAID built and data migrated before I look at the firmware of the existing Seagates.  Must admit, the firmware issue with the Seagates is putting me off too.....

 

Any views on the Samsung F3?

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The current 2 TB Seagate LPs require you to force a firmware upgrade.  I tried several times with mine, and was unsuccessful.  I wasted probably about an hour messing with it.  In my opinion, installing a jumper on a WD EARS (which takes 2 seconds and costs 10 cents) is far preferable.  Like I said above, check with local shops for jumpers.  They are generally very cheap.  They may even give you one or two for free, since they generally have buckets of them laying around.  You can also salvage them from old drives at an electronics recycling center.

 

The Samsung F3s are slow, but otherwise fine.  They will work just fine as data drives.  Definitely stay away from Samsung F4s, though, they currently aren't compatible with unRAID without a huge performance hit (they are advanced format like the WD EARS but with no jumper option or other type of compatibility mode).

 

Hitachi 7200 rpm drives are well received in this community.  They definitely make a good parity drive, though don't expect your server to be any faster by using one except in very particular circumstances (either multiple simultaneous writes to different data disks, or writes to another 7200 rpm data disk).  Personally I don't use any, as I prefer to use all green drives for the power and heat savings.

 

 

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