A new Lime machine is just around the corner. 15 Seagate 1,5TB drives are the choice of the day. After reading about the required firmware upgrades on some drives here in the forum I'm wondering how to do that. The Lime machines don't have a CDROM drive nor a disk drive.

 

Do you have any ideas?

 

1.) Can I put the required files on an USB stick?

 

2.) Do I need to install one drive after each other and issue the firmware upgrade?

 

3.) Will the firmware upgrade process find these drives that can be connected on 15 individual SATA ports?

 

Many thanks in advance.

Harald

 

The program they provide is an ISO file the you make a boot CD out of.

 

It searches and lists all the drives it finds and you pick which one you want to upgrade.

 

So yes you could leave them all hooked up if you want, should be easy to plug a CD drive into the server.

 

If you are getting all new drives it might just be easier to plug them into a normal windows machine and up date them before installing them. That is what I did, I did one at a time just so be safe but you can hook up more then one.

The program they provide is an ISO file the you make a boot CD out of.

 

It searches and lists all the drives it finds and you pick which one you want to upgrade.

 

So yes you could leave them all hooked up if you want, should be easy to plug a CD drive into the server.

 

If you are getting all new drives it might just be easier to plug them into a normal windows machine and up date them before installing them. That is what I did, I did one at a time just so be safe but you can hook up more then one.

 

Thanks. Will use the eSATA port at one of my Windows machines to check and upgrade them one after each other (uah, 15 reboots ...). Seems to be the best way. A bootable USB with that fixes would be easier but I have no idea how to build that.

 

Harald

 

It forces you to reboot after each update any way, you don't have a choice. It goes pretty fast actually, so not a big deal.

 

Just hope that all of your drives have the same firmware on them, each firmware has a different update.

How do you check the firmware? Where do you get the firmware? I just bought 6 drives from Newegg. How do you do an update? I want these drives to be ready before I put them in the Server. Appreciate the advise.

You have to contact Seagate to see if your drives require the update. It is best to call because they don't answer request off the web site very fast. Have part number and firware version for each drive handy.

The firmware version is printed on the drive label.  If you check the Newegg product page you'll find that they have a download liunk for the firmware update if you clock on the Product Tour tab in the upper righthand corner opf the web page.  Otherwise, you'll have to contact Seagate Tech Support and have them e-mail the iso file to you.  There's a dedicated thread regarding this issue in the Home Theater Computer section of the AVS Forums.  The affected firmware versions are listed around page three of the thread IIRC.

 

I upgraded both my 1.5TB drives using a Thermaltake BlacX external SATA docking station.  You connect it to your PC via a USB port and plug the drive into the BlacX module just like an old 8-track tape (for those of you that remember what that was).  Press the power button and it gets recognized by your system .  The BlacX docking station is available from numerous vendors and has all kinds of rebates associated with it.  I got one from RatShack for only $10 after MIR. 

 

To perform the firmware upgrade, I disconnected the internal power connectors from all of my internal drives except the CD-ROM and then booted from the CD created from the iso file.  The process to upgrade the firmware is straightforward and self-explanatory.