Seagate 7200.10 AAK firmware performance issues!

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If you have a Seagate 7200.10 disk, what firmware?

  • EEks! I have one of those AAK disks!

    Votes: 26 52.0%
  • I have an AAE/AAC disk <:)

    Votes: 15 30.0%
  • I have a 7200.10 but with other firmware

    Votes: 3 6.0%
  • I have a 7200.10 but don't know the firmware

    Votes: 6 12.0%

  • Total voters
    50
I just bought the 500 gig st3500630as with the AAK firmware from Fry's. My drive came with the jumper setting to cap it at the 1.5 gig transfer mode to make it compatible with some older chip sets. I completely removed the jumper and it greatly improved my performance.

HD Tune: ST3500630AS Benchmark

Transfer Rate Minimum : 38.6 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Maximum : 70.0 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Average : 60.8 MB/sec
Access Time : 13.0 ms
Burst Rate : 137.7 MB/sec
CPU Usage : 2.2%
 
Sorry. Here's my results after doing a re-boot and disabling wireless networking.

HD Tune: ST3500630AS Benchmark

Transfer Rate Minimum : 28.1 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Maximum : 70.6 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Average : 61.0 MB/sec
Access Time : 13.1 ms
Burst Rate : 150.1 MB/sec
CPU Usage : 2.0%

 
Very nice article. I purchased my AAK HD last Thursday. I'm not a big gamer; I do use my PC for video and graphic editing, but I haven't had any speed issues that have caused me to groan yet. My only concern at this point is a noise the 7200.10 makes. My PC temperature is fine, maybe even a bit on the cooler side (would this affect HDD noise or performance much? I know excessive heat is detrimental). To avoid being redundant, I'll link the post I left on an older thread in this forum:

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/243788-32-seagate-7200-seek-noise

Has anybody on this thread ever heard the noise from the AAK or other firmware versions? I don't want to return the thing and look like a hypochondriac if it's just a normal function of the drive. The PC is in a separate room so it won't wake me up at night.
 
I thought I would add some experience with this issue that may be of help.

I have a large SAN RAID unit at work, using 15x Seagate ST3750640NS drives (Barracuda ES, 750GB, SATA300, NCQ, 16M cache). The firmware on these drives is not the same as the desktop models, but is labeled similarly. While the desktop versions have 3.AAE or 3.AAK firmware (or other versions), my Barracuda ES drives have 3.AEE or 3.AEG firmware. Note the "E" in the middle character vice the "A", this probably notes the difference between the desktop drives and the ES drives.

Anyway, I had a drive fail in my SAN last week, purchased another ST3750640NS to replace it, and it had 3.AEK firmware. As soon as the array was running on that drive, it showed a marked drop in performance. Now, this doesn't necessarily indicate an inherent problem with the 3.AEK firmware, but rather that the mismatch between the other 14 drives (on 3.AEE and 3.AEG) and the single 3.AEK drive was causing a problem.

I called Seagate and ended up doing two things to resolve the issue, but found out a few things that are very interesting. First, the 3.AEK drive is not only different firmware, it's different hardware. Apparently, the controller board on that drive is a different, newer revision. This is evident in the internal Seagate part number. Drives with 3.AEE or 3.AEG firmware have a part number of 9BL148-301, while the drive with the 3.AEK firmware has a part number of 9BL148-303. Seagate told me that because the controller board is different, there is no way to flash the firmware to a matching version because no other firmware other than 3.AEK will run on that controller board.

They offered to RMA the drive for me and give me a -301 drive with 3.AEE firmware so that it would match the rest of the drives in my SAN.

They also gave me a password-protected web site where they have firmware flashers. The site was password-protected with a key that was tied to my technical support case number, and is only open for my password for 9 days. It also restricts me to downloading only the flasher specific for my drive model, and my requested firmware. He gave me the 3.AEG flasher, which I will use soon to flash all the 3.AEE drives in my array to 3.AEG, thus they will all match. He said that 3.AEG is the latest firmware for the -301 part.

Even though all of this is in the context of Barracuda ES drives, I suspect that the overall issue is identical for the desktop drives using AAE and AAK firmware. i.e. The hardware is different, and flashers for the drives do exist but can't change AAK drives to AAE drives because of the different controller board.
 
My one year old 7200.10 AAK began to get progressively noisier as time went on (it was never very quiet.)

I RMAed it and Seagate sent me a "repaired" drive, another AAK.

The replacement drive was still very noisy and the performance was disappointing. Someone sent me the "AAM" firmware and it increased the drive's performance slightly. The noise levels remained the same.

The HD seek noise was driving me nuts in my living room, so I replaced the drive with a 500 GB WD GP.

The GP is WAY quieter than the 7200.10, and it kicks the crap out of it performance wise, too. It also runs about 6 degrees C cooler than the 7200.10.

The 7200.10 was my first Seagate drive in many years, and I have to say it was a big disappointment.

I don't see myself buying Seagate again.
 
Have to agree. Reviewers need to start including acoustic measurements in their benchmarking. The Seagate seek noise is just too much for many environments.
 



I noticed the temps of your drives are different by quite a bit. [11c] Not sure how that temp is read if it means anything or not, but looking at all the other ones posted here none of the other ones show this discrepancy.
 
No wonder I feel my 500GB disk is much slower than 750GB or even slower than 400GB drive from Seagate. I have this exact firmware!

Seagate's quality really sucks bit time after buying Maxtor.
 
I have a 7200.10 with the 3.aak firmware. I can tell you that I'm going on my 5th replacement this year. Spinrite showed every single one of these drives having 1000s of ECC and seek errors. This last one that is going back next week lasted only a week.