Power On Hours were 0 for all drives and Start/Stop count were 2 on most of the drives and some had 3 but not more. This is for the good drive that went well:
I’ll send you info tonight for the other drive that turned bad.
The picture i attached was for the good drive that turned out to be good even after firmware update and sector size to 4K. The number i wrote is of another drive, same batch and model but this was used a few times with file copying and no firmware change or sector size change was done on this drive.
Yes, one or two last digit might be missing cause the photo is of last week. Also, this number is taken from SeaTools and not smartctl. Let me know if you need the details/pictures from the smartctl.
It sounds like your question should really be going to seagate support.
As far as I know the usable capacity value in SMART is definitive.
You upgraded firmware and sector size to 4K on one drive, and lost 500GB. You did it to another and didn’t?
Ask Seagate.
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Yeah, that’s right. That’s how it went.
I’ll forget it as neither i’ve an idea what went wrong nor other members have clue and i did whatever the members suggested (no offence intented). And Seagate, they’re not going to do anything extra other than asking me to do RMA.
Regarding the slowness of the drives, i’ll check with direct connection with SATA if that makes any changes. If its still slow for the drives i updated the firmware and sector change to 4K, maybe i’ll just continue to build the machine and go with 512e. It could be possible that SeaTools doesn’t work well with 4K sector drives and who knows if its slow to intialize in SeaTools, it might act weird on TrueNAS side or may not but i’ve lost like more than two weeks and even if i forget about the reduction in usable capacity after firmware update and sector change, i don’t have idea on why the 4K converted drives are slow with SeaTools.
Me neither.
Again, this is a Seagate issue at this point.
Not only does it not make sense that using Seagate’s own tool and firmware would result with a “delay” for a drive, but the your results are inconsistent.
I can only vouch that I used the latest software package (directly from Seagate’s website), and used my serial numbers to download the latest firmware (also from Seagate’s website). I did not use any “bundled” firmware that exists in a folder in the software’s zip package.
I’m not sure if some of your drives might in fact be refurbished, or the vendor might play a part.
There’s not much that can be said other than:
- Use Seagate’s official software
- Use your HDD’s serial numbers to download the relevant firmware
- Upgrade each drive’s firmware with the official software
- Lowlevel format each drive with the official software
- Disable the aggressive EPC timers with the official software
You’re getting different results with different drives. That’s a discrepancy and could implicate the vendor or some bad batch from Seagate, or they are refurbished / vendor recertified.
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There’s this little nugget making the rounds…
I keep pinching my arm, but I still can’t wake up.
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That’s what i did. I went to Seagate Support Site and put my drive serial and downloaded the ZIP file and then made bootable USB from that and used the firmware from that ZIP file. This is what i meant when i said bundled.
Did everything except for the EPC timers.
Yes, that’s right i’m getting different results with different drives i’ve tested so far. I’m pretty sure the drives are new. At least what the Smart info i can see from the drive and also the physical condition. Its top notch, no dents, no scratches, no dust, no lints, quite brand new. So, maybe it was just having some sort of manufacturing defects or the fact that i had it one NTFS partition and i went ahead and did the firmware upgrade+changed the sector size to 4096 and lost 500GB in capacity for that particular drive.
OMG. I knew about Chia mining but was not sure how to check except for the Power on time and start/stop count. Thanks for the link. I’ll test it today to know the drive state.
The firmware and software bundle are two separate downloads.
Here is where I downloaded the separate firmware file. The download is a single file, not part of a bundled package with software.
The firmware upgrade and sector formatting are lowlevel operations. They are agnostic to any partition tables or filesystems that currently exist.
It would be like saying: “I want to start all over. Previously, I saved a large WebM video file in my Downloads folder before I did the manufacturer’s sector format. Maybe the Seagate tool doesn’t like the presence of a large video file on an Ext4 filesystem?”
The farm option should hopefully help to clue you in.
I would also check the warranty status on those serial numbers.
EDIT: What luck. Seagate’s warranty lookup is down for the next 8 hours. I wonder if it has anything to do with this news story.
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For what it’s worth, I felt the pain of these shortsighted Chia miners, which I voiced on the old forums.
They made a blot on the HDD market. 
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Really? I used the serial number and i got a zip file that had the Firmware and the SeaChest Utility.
Could be possible!
Oh yeah. I got really busy but tested all of the new batch drives yesterday and guess what? All of these 6 drives are used for almost 3yrs approx and the SMART data was reset. These drives are re-packaged to make it appear like new. However, i’m curious about finding the amount of data written in the Farm log. I couldn’t see it anywhere. For some of the disks, the manufacturing YYWW was absent as well.
As these drives were heavily used (maybe in a DC or Chia mining), i’m not sure of. So, it’s likely possible that one of the drive acted weird (the loss in the usable capacity).
Warranty shows up to 2026.
Might be. I also checked and there was maintenance notice that it will not be available for a few days.
If i get time today, or this week, i’ll check for the delay with the proper used/new drives or these new batch ones with SeaTools.
Also, can the FARM data reset as well? I do have some re-certified drives which were sent to me directly by Seagate and the FARM Power on Hours and SMART Power On Hours are exact numbers. Now, i’m not sure if the manufacturer drives have SMART/FARM data reset.
Seems like that’s the case!