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New Seagate Drives Have Real Difficulties With Linux
wtansill writes "Seagate's Free Agent series of drives are not intended to be compatible with the Open Source operating system Linux. The Inquirer reports on the problem: an unhelpful power saving mode. 'The problem is to do with the power-saving systems on Seagate's latest range of drives and the fact that it is shipped already formatted to NTFS. The NTFS is only a slight hurdle to Linux users who have a kernel with NTFS writing enabled or can work mkfs. But the "power saving" timer is a real bugger. It will shut the drive off after several minutes of inactivity and helpfully drop the USB connection. When the connection does come back it returns as USB1 which is apparently as useful as a chocolate teapot.' Via Engadget, though, there is a solution!
They always spell it like that. It's a joke not a typo.
I'm depressed that some people on Slashdot don't know the difference between Open Source and GNU GPL software.
Disconnecting hard drives is a big problem for external devices. So is power saving, and laptop use especially. I'll bet that Seagate will sell a "Mac-compatible" version fairly soon that voids this problem, and it'll be compatible with Linux.
But this is an amazingly foolish mistake on Seagate's part.
Why sue? Can't you just go back to the shop and return it? It's a faulty product, after all.
-- Cheers!
Why does the Seagate manufacturer say us that its hard disks are now dependent of the "propietary" OS?
Why doesn't the Seagate manufacturer comply the SATA/SATA-II specifications for the working interaction between its harddisks and any OS?
Why does the Seagate manufacturer add more complexity above the low-level layer of the harddisks?
Why does the Seagate manufacturer jump out the IEEE/ISO/ANSI standarization?
I could buy an argument as "there is a development bug, but we are fixing it soon and we are very sorry for this, but the faulty drives will be replaced".
There is no way in hell, I buy an argument like "Our drives are not supposed to work with Linux".
Either they hire complete idiots for their tech support, or this a sign of something really really bad smelling as the OOXML scandal or the SCO scandal.
Anyway, now I won't buy any more Seagate drives, at least not until Seagate has cleared this mess up.And when combined with this story: http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2007/12/07/western_digital_drm_crippled_harddrive/
A kindly Reg reader tipped us off that the remote-access HDD won't share media files over network connections. Which is, as you can see here, the entire stinking point of it.
It's a scary world full of potentially unlicensed media. We're fortunate there's a hard drive vendor willing to step forward and do some indiscriminate policing for us.
From the WD site:
"Due to unverifiable media license authentication, the most common audio and video file types cannot be shared with different users using WD Anywhere Access."
WD's list of banned file types encompasses over 35 extensions. This includes AAC, MP3, AVI, DivX, WMV, and Quicktime files. And why not -- Windows TMP files too.
Looks like there's something going on to push Windows as the only OS, leaving Linux and the rest up a creek with no hard drives at this rate. This is very disturbing.Take Nobody's Word For It.
Looks like there's a fairly good solution at NSLU2-Linux. Sounds like it might handle the reattachment better.
That said, while I initially liked USB attached disks, I've later found the issues with lack of SMART and other features over USB to be a showstopper for any serious use (ie, anything beyond a replacement for burning DVD's for sneakernet transmission). I'm no longer particularly surprised when the level of 'working' of such devices is found to be relative.
Don't buy crap! If Seagate is only capable of spitting out this kind of crap, choose another vendor with a similar product.
If I could mod you +10 Basic Common Sense I would. Thank you. If everyone who was unhappy with the drive took it back as faulty, it would make the point and encourage Seagate to do something about it. Where's the harm to justify a lawsuit? It's an affordable, consumer grade external hard drive, not a million-euro SAN that is storing mission-critical air traffic control data. If you want every single external hard drive to be guaranteed perfect on pain of lawsuit, they'll all cost $500, with good reason. If you want perfection, pay for it and please stop the nonsense about lawsuits on the more affordable products. By the way, I have two of these drives, and they are great. Seagate should be lauded for producing a fast, quiet, attractive and affordable product that just works and has a very generous warranty. I can see that quite a few people have had a problem with faulty units; my 2 are rock solid and have been for over 6 months so far.
Someone mod this guy up!! I'm fed up with this typical attitude of "omg let's sue them!!" There's no point if the situation can be resolved some other sensible way. Suing should be saved for when they start refusing to refund/replace the faulty product, not because the product doesn't quite work because they messed it up. Warranties exist for a reason!!
Who need's speling and grammar?
This is a Windows software product really offers the same benefits as most other Windows products, so the following things should be noted: .zip.
- "32-bit Operating Systems ONLY"
- "Though this is a simple procedure, it is recommended that you backup any/all critical data before continuing." (this software *contains* the backup utility)
- Doesn't make clear which operating systems are included on the tools page, you'll have to read the product specs per product.
- All in one package, so don't use with without a high speed internet connection (~100 MB). Manual available after download, so any questions will be answered after you download the thing.
- No version information in the filename. I must admit, it is not called "setup.exe" so they are making progress here. Then again, the Mac version has the same filename and ends with
- It's an agent. Hello rather unhelpful, additional icon next to my clock. Hello increased startup time. If we're lucky, we'll spend several seconds staring at a logo as well.
And this is before trying the actual product.
The problem seems not to be the power saving, but the drop of the USB connection, which AFAIK violates all standards. It seesm to mean that the computer has to know the drive is there, and that it should ignore the obviously crashed USB connection and just asume the drive is still fine. Linux does the right thing and disconnects the drive. My guess is that on Windows, there is either a more optimistic driver (i.e. one that makes the customer happy and hides the problem) or these Seagates actually need their own, special driver.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Because most return counters don't have people capable of determining USB2 compliance and making the call that the product is defective by design. That leaves us stuck with the stores' goodwill policies on returns, since the unit is evidently working as designed.
Always going forward, 'cause we can't find reverse.
These are Seagate disks in USB enclosures. The problem here is with the behavior of the USB bridge chipset, NOT THE DISK.
If you simply return the drive as defective, they'll shrug their shoulders and assume it was just that one disk. Tons of Windows users might not even have noticed.
The point of suing them is so there's no mistake -- every single drive is defective -- and so they don't assume they can simply give you a replacement drive and everything will be OK.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!