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Why bother with hard drive firmware updates?

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goombawaho

goombawaho

MIS
Oct 7, 2007
6,597
US
A cautionary tale of why it's important to check for hard drive firmware updates periodically. This is for an HP server hard drive.

Issue: "After long term use of the HDD, a rare condition might occur following a power cycle where the drive heads may land on areas of the disk containing data, which could potentially cause data loss or mechanical damage. Firmware version HPG5 prevents this condition from occurring."

From:
Are you kidding me - "drive heads may land on areas of the disk containing data". [evil]
 
Sounds like the update for the seagate drives. Just had a Lenovo server a few weeks ago, 2 of 4 500GB drives, dead, and holding the bus down so hard the server wouldn't even post.
 
Sounds like the update for the seagate drives. Just had a Lenovo server a few weeks ago, 2 of 4 500GB drives, dead, and holding the bus down so hard the server wouldn't even post.
Click to expand...
I'd better bust a move and get that firmware updated. It's only a RAID 1 so not much room for failure. Imagine all the servers that aren't being checked for updates like this.

BBB Yeah, but.... When you order server hard drives, they don't tell you that they are Seagate, WD, etc. and most manufacturers want you to buy their drives and not stick your choice of drive in a (hot swap) drive tray.

You get a model something like this when ordering:
HP 1TB 3G SATA 7.2K rpm LFF (3.5-inch) Midline 1yr Warranty Hard Drive
 
Goom,

>>When you order server hard drives, they don't tell you that they are Seagate, WD, etc. and most manufacturers want you to buy their drives and not stick your choice of drive in a (hot swap) drive tray.
Actually, here at work, we make that choice which HD goes into the server, we do not buy OEM servers for our customers at all...

but I know what you mean... ;)

Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"
 
Doesn't that void your warranty or support in some way? Do you order empty drive trays and fill them?
 
So, give me an example of the guts if you would - the server case/motherboard (like an Intel chassis and you add the rest) or totally from scratch like you'd build a home PC.

What about warranty? Wouldn't that be a big concern for customers - no support other than you and you relying on manufacturer's warranties.
 
What about warranty? Wouldn't that be a big concern for customers - no support other than you and you relying on manufacturer's warranties."

When I was building a good number my customers didn't worry about manufacturer's warranties. It was more important to get systems back in operation than to quibble about who was paying for the replacement parts or who was building them.

Fianally brought my most reluctant customer around when I gave him the option of under $1000 for a system change versus $3000 and 3 weeks to get a replacement Intel board. In that $1000 was a spare case, MB, memory and the other parts to have a spare on site.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.
 
Well, we're talking about a "non-panic installation" where there is planning for the server vs. having a gun to your head to replace a dead system. There's something to be said for the aura that big companies project vs. your humble IT guy saying "I can build you a server".
 
>> totally from scratch like you'd build a home PC.

OK, this is from a recent workstation that we had put together, total custom build...

CPU: Intel X5680
RAM: 32GB Samsung DDR3-1600 CL11 (DDP2Gx4) ECC reg. QR (768 GB)
Mainboard: Supermicro X9DRi-LN4F+
System drive(s): 2x Plextor M3 Pro 512GB (PX-512M3P) - RAID 0 (customer's choice) (onboard RAID controller)
GFX-Card: nVidia Quatro FX-5000 4GB
Data drive(s): 6x Western Digital VelociRaptor 600GB, (WD6000HLHX) - RAID 50 (customer's choice) (separate RAID Controller from LSI)
Case: Xigmatek Elysium BLK (modified to accommodate the mainboard)
PSU: SeaSonic X-850 (modular)
OS: CAE Linux (Ubuntu 10.10 base) (customer's choice - due to the age of the OS, it will not recognize the four Network-cards in the system)
all the above at room-noise levels (about 45 - 55 dB)...

as to server (Failback) we generally use Supermicro cases and mainboards, Cisco or HP switches, for the SAN Open-E DSS V7...

>> no support other than you & Wouldn't that be a big concern for customers
to the customer, we are the first place they call for support, and we handle everything, including biting the bullet when something does go wrong and it was our fault (in the above build, three mainboards where used, two had build in defekts (not quite DOA but on their last leg) and one our fault, as we did not see where the case had touched the solder-points on CPU 2's RAM slots (from one second to the next it would not boot up anymore, took us a whole day to figure out that it was the upper PSU bracket that caused the issue).






Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"
 
I think the majority of people would be leery of home built servers unless you've gained their trust. I've mentioned it to customers and they seem to knee-jerk back to Dell/HP.

Workstations would be an easier sell, but the windows license often puts that price over comparable brand name machines because you (me) aren't buying in volume.
 
After I pulled one CPA (and his customer) out of the fire he let me supply what I was comfortable with for his customers as replacements were needed. I built commodity stuff, except for the drives and controllers. Later I latched on to a couple of pallets of off-lease Dells that worked admirably for other customers. For $11 plus some parts the last installed have been going for at least 10 years.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.
 
>> I've mentioned it to customers and they seem to knee-jerk back to Dell/HP.
Oh, yeah, there are a few that think the same, we tell them the options they have and the differences in the downtime, one or two days versus one or two weeks. That usually gets them then. Basically, our customers can't afford a downtime of more than two days, due to the nature of the field they are in. As to WS, here it is the choice between speed and noise versus cheap and loud, and most do opt for the former.

If it was a carpenter business, just as an example, sure we would tell them too to go ahead and use a big name OEM, as they tend to be cheaper.

Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"
 
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