Seagate 7200.12 1TB firmware issues!

[zsero]

I have just bought two Seagate 7200.12 1TB (ST31000528AS) after using 4 x 7200.8 drives for 4 years 24/7 in RAID 5 with absolutely no problems. I have read about the 7200.11 firmware issues, but I found out that everything was solved by the 12 series.

But it was not. One of the drives I bought has firmware CC34, the other has CC44. As it turns out, the CC44 drive has a seek time of 20 ms! And it is so much more quiet during seeks. The CC34 is really loud during seeks but has a seek time of 14 ms! Yes, that's 42% difference between the same models from the same manufacturer! Acoustically they are even more different, but I do not have any equipment to measure it.

AAM is set to 0 on CC34, where it is set to 208 on CC44. There seems no way to change it. I tried everything, but the drive resets itself to its default values. I tried different DOS utils and with one, I could finally disable it on CC44, but as it turned out, it came out not as disabled, but only set to max performance. Since it happened I cannot set it to anything else, and it really didn't change anything. Neither acoustics nor performance changed a bit.

I think it's best if I just show you the measurements:

http://img44.imageshack.us/img...000528as000200cc34.jpg
http://img523.imageshack.us/im...000528as000200cc44.jpg
http://img269.imageshack.us/im...00528as000200cc442.jpg
http://img514.imageshack.us/im...ebenchmarkst310005.png
http://img361.imageshack.us/im...ebenchmarkst310005.png

 

[firewolfsm]

Sorry, what's your question?

 

[zsero]

Oh, my question is that how can I change the AAM on these drives? It seems that it makes a HUGE difference!

I have tried many utils but it's always resets back to the original values no matter what I do!

HD Tune Pro: value goes back after applying
HD Sentinel Pro: same after applying
Hitachi Feature Tool: makes a hard restart without starting
HDDScan: seems good, values stay the same, but actually nothing changes!

My mobo is an Asus Maximus Formula and I was using XP 64-bit for the win utils and IDE mode for the Hitachi Tool. What is the best mode under Win for these tools to work well? IDE, AHCI or RAID?

 

[imported_Otter]

It appears that you can't adjust the AAM. All you can do is pick a version of the firmware and update the other drive to match.

 

[zsero]

There are not any firmwares or updating tools for these drives!

 

[hans007]

wow taht really sucks. the 7200.12 doesn't even benchmark very well to begin with and with a 20ms seek it just wont be that competitive. i bet with the slower firmware some of the 5400rpm drives are keeping up with it.

 

[zsero]

There is a more detailed thread at SPCR here:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/.../viewtopic.php?t=54489

In short it's even more complex, here is the table I collected on my drives:
CC34 firmware -> seek 14.5 ms (and AAM disabled)
CC35 firmware -> seek 13.5 ms (and AAM Max Performance)
CC44 firmware -> seek 18.5-19.5 ms (and AAM Balanced Performance (208))

BTW, one of my drives just started making a clicking sound in the hottest summer days, but now it's normal. And my mouse stops every time I am doing some IO intensive task on the main OS drive, e.g. unrar-ing or copying huge folders. It really feels weird!

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: zsero
AAM is set to 0 on CC34, where it is set to 208 on CC44.

That's interesting. I didn't think that Seagate supported AAM, because they lost that lawsuit over AAM implementation, so they couldn't put it in their drives. Perhaps enough time has elapsed that they have started supporting it again?

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: zsero

BTW, one of my drives just started making a clicking sound in the hottest summer days, but now it's normal. And my mouse stops every time I am doing some IO intensive task on the main OS drive, e.g. unrar-ing or copying huge folders. It really feels weird!

That's not so good. That shouldn't be happening.

 

[betaflame]

HDDscan can't change it?

-Won't work through a hardware raid controller

 

[zsero]

Not even HDDScan could change it. I tried everything, the only solution was to put it in a different MB and change it there.

Later, accidentally it turned out that Victoria (data recovery software) could change it easily even on the motherboard where nothing was able to change it (not even from DOS). So now I could change it as I like it, but there is no difference neither in speed nor in accousics whenever I set it on CC35 and CC44 drives. Somebody says that on CC34 the AAM setting does effect speed.

 

[betaflame]

Wait so the seek time didn't drop?

 

[zsero]

Originally posted by: betaflame
Wait so the seek time didn't drop?

No, AAM doesnt change anything. It is just a dummy switch on these drives (on CC35 and CC44 at least.)