calum.org:~#

WARNING: These drives may corrupt large files AND THIS FIRMWARE VERSION IS AFFECTED

Tags: data loss,

Added: 2013-07-15T16:16:48

WARNING: These drives may corrupt large files AND THIS FIRMWARE VERSION IS AFFECTED

Something made me think I'd just check that smartmontools was running on my laptop.

# /etc/init.d/smartd status
smartd is stopped
Hmm.
# /etc/init.d/smartd start
Starting smartd:                                           [  OK  ]
# chkconfig smartd on
Easy.
But I just glanced at my syslog, and saw:
Jul 15 16:02:01 host smartd[17969]: Device: /dev/sda [SAT], WARNING: These drives may corrupt large files,
Jul 15 16:02:01 host smartd[17969]: AND THIS FIRMWARE VERSION IS AFFECTED,
Jul 15 16:02:01 host smartd[17969]: see the following web pages for details:
Jul 15 16:02:01 host smartd[17969]: http://knowledge.seagate.com/articles/en_US/FAQ/215451en
Jul 15 16:02:01 host smartd[17969]: http://forums.seagate.com/t5/Momentus-XT-Momentus-Momentus/Momentus-XT-corrupting-large-files-Linux/td-p/109008
Jul 15 16:02:01 host smartd[17969]: http://superuser.com/questions/313447/seagate-momentus-xt-corrupting-files-linux-and-mac
Eeek! That's not what I like to see! But it's something I want to know about.
I can't say I've noticed data corruption, but who's to say I haven't been affected. That's the worst kind too - the sort you don't notice, and you back your files up with the corruption in them.

So, I've downloaded the latest version of the firmware for my laptop's disk, I'm backing up my data (you have got all your data backed up, right?), and I'm about to update my firmware.

I'll be miffed to a large extent if it bricks (and this is the proper usage of the word bricked) the drive.
See you on the flip side.


Update: Several hours of backing up later, and the firmware update has gone fine. The update slightly confusingly talked about "Downloading firmware", but they use that to mean updating it.

Anyway, I'm now at FW:SD28, and smartd isn't warning me any more, which makes me happy, and I have the added benefit of knowing that I have a recent backup too. You do have backups, don't you?

posted by Calum on 2013-07-15T16:20 under

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