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Updated from 5.0-beta6a to 5.0-beta7, run parity check, checked permissions etc, every looking good

I recently purchased two of the new Seagate ST2000DL003 (Sata III) drives, they pre-cleared fine, I have one as parity and the other I added to the data population. Today I tested the speed of a few of the drives in the system using hdparm -t and the two Seagate’s returned the following results: /dev/sdh: (Parity) Timing buffered disk reads: 384 MB in 3.01 seconds = 132.79 MB/sec /dev/sdj: (Data) Timing buffered disk reads: 246 MB in 3.01 seconds = 81.74 MB/sec Bit of a difference eh? In fact based on the results the second Seagate is the slowest drive in the server. I’m going to try a different sata cable later today to see if it makes any difference, other than that the only difference between the two drives is placement: I have two Supermicro CSE-M35T1 backplanes in my system - the parity drive along with my cache drive is mounted elsewhere and is connected to the motherboard directly (ie no caddie) the second Seagate is in one of the CSE-M35T1’s and I’m wondering if this could be the problem as the CSE-M35T1’s are only rated Sata 150. That said - the other (sata II) drives all work fine and return good results so I wondered if anyone had any thoughts. Thanks in advance

Thanks keyvan. I will pick one up today and see how it goes.

Reading post here I gather the problem is more prevalent with drives which have the old (c32) firmware. The latest firmware (C35) is available for download on the Seagate site. The LP ST3200054AS is now an End of Line item and no longer manufactured -replaced by the ST2000DL003. They are selling in the UK for less than their predecessor (GBP 60 ~ $90 including 20% sales tax). I have been using 7200rpm Hitachi's with no issues at all, but I wanted to try some low power drives and given these are cheaper than the WD EURS (replacement for EARS) I bought 2 to try. I am preclearing 2 of these now. The first cycle should be done soon and I can post the results (here or the preclear results thread) if anyone is interested. The drives were all firmware CC34 and the one I have here that I received from Seagate (RMA) had two bad sectors, I upgraded it to CC35 and run the long seatools test and it replaced the sectors, though I'm not entirely happy with it. I have it sat in my own (desktop) system at the moment using it as a scratch disc. i certainly won't be putting this one in my main Unraid server. I'm going to get a ST2000DL003 this week and try it. I would be interested in seeing your preclear reults please

I've also had problems with these drives, three in total (4, if you included one of the replacement drives that was also faulty) Two were in my Unraid server and 1 in a windows desktop build, consequently I've stopped using them in client builds. Hopefully the newer 6Gb/s version (ST2000DL003) may have improved. Like 'bjp999' I have used Seagate for years and have several of their drives dotted here and there and they're working perfectly - but these LP drives have been problematic for sure.

I updated the firmware to CC35 without any data loss, though there wasn't a lot on it and I had backed it up prior to the upgrade. Also, at the time the drive was in a Win 7 machine and formatted NTFS.

My experience with WD & Seagate is similar. Wester Digital: I had a WD 640AAKS blue die on me, the RMA procedure was straight forward - received replacement (new not refurb) within a week, working perfectly. Seagate: Same drive as you (2Tb LP), was working as parity drive until it totally crapped out without warning. RMA; took about 10 days to get a replacement, it was a refurb and within 3 weeks has 2 bad sectors. As far as ratings go I would probably agree with you on 9/10 for WD and 6/10 for seagate. Though I have to say I wouldn't buy another seagate 2TB LP again.

Updated from 5.0-beta3 and everything's fine