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macgeek2005 · Mar 13, 2007, 05:39 PM

I'm sure some of you are aware that Seagate drives don't run full speed in Mac Pro's for some reason. Using xbench, I got a 48 on the hard drive test, and an iMac Core Duo got 62. The drives definetaly don't run right. Will this get fixed with Leopard? Will it get fixed EVER? Right now my drives can't read/write faster than 40mbps.

Thanks.

wr11 · Mar 15, 2007, 04:21 PM

You probably did but I'll mention it anyways....

Did you remove the SATAII jumper from the drive before installing? If you didn't then your drive will be operating at SATAI speeds. Also - yes there were some older Seagate drives that were having issues, if I remember correctly it was the 750GB version.

macgeek2005 · Mar 21, 2007, 03:21 AM

Originally Posted by wr11

You probably did but I'll mention it anyways....

Did you remove the SATAII jumper from the drive before installing? If you didn't then your drive will be operating at SATAI speeds. Also - yes there were some older Seagate drives that were having issues, if I remember correctly it was the 750GB version.

Yes I removed the jumpers from the drives. In fact, I still have both of them sitting on my desk right in front of my keyboard. I think this is a Seagate/Mac Pro issue, that isn't solitary to the 750GB drive. I wish there was a fix.... it's not that my computer ever runs slower than I need it to, it's just annoying to know that it's supposed to be going faster.

Big Mac · 03:31 AM

For some reason Segate drives do not seem to play well with Apple's pro controllers. It's a persistent problem, starting with the G5s. One would have thought Apple must have corrected it in the Mac Pros, but I suppose that's not true.

mduell · Mar 21, 2007, 06:10 PM

Barefeats reports that Seagates with firmware 3.AEE or better work great.

brokenjago · Mar 21, 2007, 06:56 PM

Is there a way to upgrade the firmware yourself?

Big Mac · Mar 21, 2007, 07:05 PM

Originally Posted by brokenjago

Is there a way to upgrade the firmware yourself?

Last time this occurred there was no user-updatable firmware, IIRC.

brokenjago · Mar 21, 2007, 07:15 PM

So that leaves the big question:

How do we know that the drive we get will have the firmware we want?

macgeek2005 · Mar 23, 2007, 02:58 AM

****... my three seagate drives have Revision numbers: 3.AAC, 3.AAE, and 3.BQH.

So there no way to change this???

brokenjago · Mar 23, 2007, 11:54 PM

Well, you can always call up Seagate and complain.

bill.j · Mar 25, 2007, 12:49 PM

For what it's worth, I've seen at least three Mac Pro towers in which the Apple-supplied drives are 500 GB Seagate Barracudas. On the other hand, I don't recall whether they were the (now discontinued) Barracuda 7200.9 or (current) Barracuda 7200.10 models. A 750 GB Barracuda would have to be the 7200.10. I'm concerned about the topic, because I just purchased a 'Cuda 7200.10 320 GB drive for a Mac Pro, and, becaause of what I intend to use it for, need it to run at full speed. I'd imagine a firmware patch would require Windows to install. I wonder if Seagate will replace 7200.10 drives with older firmware?

macgeek2005 · Mar 26, 2007, 12:32 PM

Originally Posted by bill.j

For what it's worth, I've seen at least three Mac Pro towers in which the Apple-supplied drives are 500 GB Seagate Barracudas. On the other hand, I don't recall whether they were the (now discontinued) Barracuda 7200.9 or (current) Barracuda 7200.10 models. A 750 GB Barracuda would have to be the 7200.10. I'm concerned about the topic, because I just purchased a 'Cuda 7200.10 320 GB drive for a Mac Pro, and, becaause of what I intend to use it for, need it to run at full speed. I'd imagine a firmware patch would require Windows to install. I wonder if Seagate will replace 7200.10 drives with older firmware?

Right now, your 320GB drive will write at half speed. It's not like the whole computer runs slower than it should. CPU tasks and video tasks run at full speed. When i'm playing a video game or rendering a video, it's doing it at the correct speed. It's when I copy a 30GB file from one hard drive to another that I notice it's slower than it should be.

I'm hoping this problem will be fixed with Leopard, but it probably won't. I have a 160GB 7200.9 drive in my computer (the one that it came with) and I have the original Beta of Leopard installed on there, and it runs SO fast, and I used to think it's because they made leopard move faster, but I guess it's cause the 7200.9 drive runs at full speed.

So, i'm most likely gonna be replacing my two seagate drives with Maxtor's. Is there a way I can take my current start up disc and just "Clone" it to the new drive, so I don't have to go through all the trouble of installing the system on the new one and installing my DOZENS of third party apps?

mfbernstein · Mar 26, 2007, 01:17 PM

Try SuperDuper*. It'll give you a complete bootable clone. You can always use your old Seagate as a backup...

* Actually, there are many apps than can do this: Carbon Copy Cloner, Synk, etc. I happen to prefer SD!. For what you want, the trial version should be fine.

macgeek2005 · Mar 26, 2007, 02:48 PM

Originally Posted by mfbernstein

Try SuperDuper*. It'll give you a complete bootable clone. You can always use your old Seagate as a backup...

* Actually, there are many apps than can do this: Carbon Copy Cloner, Synk, etc. I happen to prefer SD!. For what you want, the trial version should be fine.

I don't want a "bootable clone". I want my new drive to have EVERYTHING on it exactly as my current drive has. I just want to copy everything over and have it be virtually the same drive, just on a different hard disk.

Macola · Mar 26, 2007, 02:53 PM

Originally Posted by macgeek2005

I don't want a "bootable clone". I want my new drive to have EVERYTHING on it exactly as my current drive has. I just want to copy everything over and have it be virtually the same drive, just on a different hard disk.

That is, by definition, a clone. And since you want to boot from the disk, it's a bootable clone.

macgeek2005 · 03:30 PM

Right. Well, I just called Seagate, and they are 100% positive that the latest firmware for these drives is 3.AAE. They say that 3.AEE is for a completely different drive, and that for my drives, 3.AAE is the latest, and it fixes the issue. They're emailing me a zip file that will update the firmware.

edit: Yikes.. I was just re-checking hard drive speeds and now I really don't know what's going on. My Seagate drive that has 3.AAE duplicates large files at about 25mbps. My 7200.9 drive which shouldn't have any slow down at all copies at about 30mbps. My startup disc which has 3.AAC duplicates also at about 25mbps. Copying a large file to either one of the 7200.10's goes at about 45mbps. Something is wrong, and it's not the firmware issue, cause the 7200.9 doesn't have the firmware issue and it's just as slow.

I guess i'll wait till I get their update in the email, and see what happens.

macgeek2005 · 04:20 PM

Alright, nevermind! For those of you that were starting to give me a response, (if at all), i'm sorry! I've changed my mind. I'm just going with the Maxtor drives, and i'll use cccloner to clone my existing drives to them. Will carbon copy cloner copy everything including my windows partition and everything that's in windows?

Thanks again!

bld44 · Apr 12, 2007, 04:59 PM

Does anyone know if the firmware 3.AAH on a 7200.9 has this problem? I just bought it, and a little afraid to open it with what's mentioned above.

brokenjago · Apr 13, 2007, 12:59 AM

Firmware 3.AEE or higher.

I believe that 3.AAH is lower than that.

mduell · Apr 13, 2007, 09:17 AM

AFAIK you only need 3.AEE for the 7200.10 line... I haven't heard of similar problems for the 7200.9 line, so 3.AAH on one of those may be fine.

Big Mac · 09:49 AM

Anyone have experience with the ST3500641AS-RK? I was going to pick up a Maxtor 500GB because of the fewer problems people have reported concerning Mac compatibility, but Frys.com raised the price, so that leaves the Seagate above.

Edit: Okay, I verified that the 500641AS-RK is a 7200.9 drive, so I'm going to assume that should be okay.

bld44 · Apr 13, 2007, 04:40 PM

Originally Posted by mduell

AFAIK you only need 3.AEE for the 7200.10 line... I haven't heard of similar problems for the 7200.9 line, so 3.AAH on one of those may be fine.

Ah, ok. I installed the drive with my new Mac Pro today- blazing. Definately not a problem with 3.AAH on a 7200.9.

CanadaRAM · Apr 21, 2007, 12:31 AM

Originally Posted by macgeek2005

edit: Yikes.. I was just re-checking hard drive speeds and now I really don't know what's going on. My Seagate drive that has 3.AAE duplicates large files at about 25mbps. My 7200.9 drive which shouldn't have any slow down at all copies at about 30mbps. My startup disc which has 3.AAC duplicates also at about 25mbps. Copying a large file to either one of the 7200.10's goes at about 45mbps. Something is wrong, and it's not the firmware issue, cause the 7200.9 doesn't have the firmware issue and it's just as slow.

Just checking: duplicating a file on a single drive, and copying a file TO a drive from a different physical drive, are not comparable

You would normally expect the Duplicate to be approx half the speed of the Copy, because in the Duplicate it is the same set of heads that have to do both the reading and the writing.

netrate · Jun 8, 2007, 03:37 PM

If anyone has a Seagate Barracuda 320gig ST3320620AS with the firmware 3.AAC and they want to part with it, let me know I would be interested even if it is used.

David

netrate@ya(REMOVE)hoo.com

joshwest · Jun 18, 2007, 11:45 PM

so your suppose to remove the jumpers when installing new drives?