# Seagate is having firmware issues...again.



## newtekie1 (Aug 5, 2013)

It all started back in June when I bought this Seagate 1TB Hybrid SSD Hard Drive.

I installed it and installed Windows.  It worked for about 48 hours then everything just ground to a halt.  The drive was still functional, but extremely slow.  It would take almost an hour just to get into a desktop in Windows.

I was able to clone the drive to another drive I had and I RMA'd the Hybrid Drive, and surprisingly the cloning process was very quick.

When I received the replacement I installed it and it has run fine since, until today that is.

It has ran for about a month, and now I'm getting the exact same symptoms.  But this time with a blue screen after a while, before it would even load into the desktop.

Back when the first drive was having issues I checked to see if there was a firmware upgdate, and there wasn't.  This time I checked again, and at first I thought there wasn't because Seagate's site is very confusing on the issue.  Where it says Firmware Updates on the page for my drive it says there isn't any updates.  However, under Certificate it says there actually is a firmware update.  The latest version is SM15, my drive shipped with SM11.

Here is a screenshot of the page, and you can see how stupid it is.  How many people just see the firmware section and see that there is no update and don't read lower:






Now, in the install instructions for the new firmware is states that if you're upgrading from SM11 that the SSD portion of the drive has to be scanned, which could take up to 10 minutes.  It also said not to interupt the process or the data on the SSD portion could become corrupt(signifying to me that it is not just scanning, but writing too).  Mine took under a minute.

Updating the firmware on my drive didn't actually fix my issue.  So off to RMA the drive goes once again!  Argh...

So here is my *speculation* on the issue.  It seems to me that the SM11 firmware is causing some kind of issue with the SSD portion of the hard drive.  That is why when updating the firmware the SSD portion has to be "scanned".  My guess is that this scanning is really reading the SSD data and storing it on the hard drive, and then rewriting it to the SSD after the new firmware is installed.  Another reason I think the problem is related to the SSD portion is because when I did a clone of the drive, which is mostly bypassing the SSD portion, it performed seemingly normally.  However, when it is loading Windows, which is loading a lot from the SSD, it performs like garbage.


----------



## hat (Aug 6, 2013)

Sorry to hear you're having troubles. This is why I stick with WD when it comes to hard drives, haven't heard much bad about them. Seagate really seems to have been earning themselves a bad rap over the years, and not just from enthusiasts like us.


----------



## newtekie1 (Aug 6, 2013)

hat said:


> Sorry to hear you're having troubles. This is why I stick with WD when it comes to hard drives, haven't heard much bad about them. Seagate really seems to have been earning themselves a bad rap over the years, and not just from enthusiasts like us.



I've had my fair share of problems with WD drives too, so I don't favor one or the other.  I got stuck with Seagates last firmware issue too, had to RMA one drive and then they released the update publicly so I applied it to my other 2 drives there were affected, and all 3 are still running today.

Seagate seems to have firmware issues while WD seems to have physical hardware issues. I've received RMA drives from them with huge dents in the tops of the drives, and no physical damage to the packaging.  Meaning they were dented somewhere on the assembly line before they were packaged.  I've had this happen twice. Ironically both were their Enterprise/RE class drives, and both were being RMA'd because they failed in under 6 months.


----------



## Jstn7477 (Aug 6, 2013)

I'm surprised you're having so much trouble with your hybrid drives. I still have one of their original laptop hybrid drives (500GB + 4GB SSD) and it has always worked flawlessly for me, even after a few firmware updates.


----------



## newtekie1 (Aug 6, 2013)

Jstn7477 said:


> I'm surprised you're having so much trouble with your hybrid drives. I still have one of their original laptop hybrid drives (500GB + 4GB SSD) and it has always worked flawlessly for me, even after a few firmware updates.



I think it is all related to the SM11 firmware being broken.


----------

