I have resolved this issue for these 4TB SAS drives - ST4000NM0023 .
Steps to resolve:
Go to https://apps1.seagate.com/downloads/request.html and enter serial z1z7fbz0
None of the serials on my drives prompted for a new firmware, so I found this on the original listing however could also search other listings for the same drive model
Download firmware E007
Also see this forum thread for another link https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/success-updating-firmware-on-seagate-st4000nm0023.22383/
Failing those options above, I have a copy of the E007 firmware, so reach out if need be
Flash the firmware to the drives with openSeaChest
openSeaChest_Firmware -d /dev/sg2 --downloadFW fwfilename
Format with sg_format
sg_format -v --format --size=512 --six --fmpinfo=0 /dev/sg2
I have tried without both --six and --fmpinfo, the ~16 hour process still happens but the drive still cannot be written to at the end without these options (for me, anyway)
Now the drive can successfully be formatted and partitioned, hurray!
