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$119.99 + $1.99 shipping and you can get $18 back from Microsoft with their cashback promotion.

 

15% Microsoft cashback instructions

1. Register your MS passport account for cashback here: http://search.live.com/cashback

2. Go to live.com and search for TigerDirect. IE works best for this, adblock will block the next step.

3. Click the ad for TigerDirect 15% cashback.

 

Seagate now provides a firmware update for the drives with freezing issues. http://www.pcworld.com/article/154602/.html?tk=rss_news

 

The drive is also $120 shipped at Newegg. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148337

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148337

This is still available... seems like a good price.

Updated the original post with a new deal on the drive.

I've been running one of these drives as parity since the end of September.  Sometime this morning (all was fine about 3 hours ago) the status of my parity drive changed to DISK_DSBL.  See the attached image.

 

I suppose I could restart and re-run parity.  But, how could I best determine if this drive is bad?

 

I'm not really sure what the best course of action is.  Any advice??

I've been running one of these drives as parity since the end of September.  Sometime this morning (all was fine about 3 hours ago) the status of my parity drive changed to DISK_DSBL.  See the attached image.

 

I suppose I could restart and re-run parity.  But, how could I best determine if this drive is bad?

 

I'm not really sure what the best course of action is.  Any advice??

Post a copy of your syslog. (assuming you have not yet rebooted and erased any evidence it had of the failure)

Start a NEW thread with your error in the hardware forum... Odds of somebody looking at it in the "Good Deals!" forum are far less.

 

If it has not actually failed, but a connector has come loose, or it just went to sleep for an extended time (see links below), then you could un-assign it, then reboot, then re-assign it.  A complete parity re-calc will occur.

 

Many of these have suffered early failures, so don't be surprised if you become another statistic.   From what I've read, some firmware versions just go to sleep for 30 seconds or so, leaving the controller to think the drive has failed.  If it does wake up when you reboot, think about upgrading its firmware.

[pre]One post had this explanation from Seagate support:

 

ST31500341A drives with part numbers of 9JU138-301 should be updated to CC1H.

 

Drives with part numbers of 9JU138 -300 and -336 should be updated to SD1A.

[/pre]See here: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Seagate-Releases-Firmware-Fix-for-1-5TB-Barracuda-Drives-98823.shtml

and here

http://forums.seagate.com/stx/board?board.id=ata_drives

 

Apparently, some have had issues with the new firmware too, so you might want to read through the seagate forums to learn more.

See here: http://forums.seagate.com/stx/board?board.id=ata_drives

 

This drive with the old firmware has been described as being VERY bad with conventional RAID, as two concurrent "sleep/detect as unresponsive" drives will cause you to lose all the data with some RAID5 hardware controllers.  At least with unRAID, you would probably be able to get to most, if not all of your data, once you reboot.

 

Joe L.

Thanks Joe.  Started a new thread in Hardware:

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=2773.msg22793#msg22793

 

A complete syslog is there.