Seagate and I are done: 320GB AAK firmware - they won't help me with a HD swap!

[ziddey]

i posted the link to this thread at fluffles and vr-zone, the two big threads on aak/aam

[One_Hertz]

Alright guys, let's get back on topic ok. Enough with the bashing, mocking and people getting mad at me because I want the best I can get. I didn't know that it would hurt One_Hertz so much. I am so sorry for wasting internet real estate on my 4% problem. I should have run it by One_Hertz to make sure it's ok to post.

Because here at XtremeSystems Forums, I should have known better than to post something about getting the performance I can out of existing parts. I should have known better than to post without letting One_Hertz know so he can tell me about wasting time.

How dare I waste all of your time trying to get 4% out of my Hard Drives.
It's wrong of me to ask for help, I mean, after all, what if I were trying to OC my machine by 4% more, would that have made it better One_Hertz?

Is extracting the most performance, whether it be 1% or 25%, wrong? Why do you care? It's not your time I am "wasting". Tell the rest of us on the board that they are wasting their time by their 1,2,5,10 FSB clock gains when OC'ing. You're insulting everyone on here with that mentality.

Who are you to tell me that it does not meet YOUR STANDARD of "awesome-ness"?

I don't care where you're from, that's not relevant. I don't care if you were my neighbor. Your arrogance is relevant, though. I wasn't the one who said that. You are too up tight. You are the first one on this forum who has not been civil to me....everyone else has been really really cool. You took a shot at me.

Honestly, if you are not interested in my post, don't reply to it! Move on to insult the next guy who asks for help.

That being said, I hope to help you one day if you ever have an issue, or at least contribute in a civil manner that might lead you to a solution, honestly....or do you have ALL the answers and don't need anyone's help?

Extra fsb actually does something for you, while extra str does basically nothing. Don't compare apples to oranges. Look at raid 0 real world benchmarks, they get nearly no improvements by gaining nearly 100% extra str and here you are making a huge deal over 4.

I was mainly complaining about you wasting Seagate employees' time and flat out bashing them over something so insignificant as this. You are like one of those people that get into a huge fight with the cashier that gave them 2c less change than he was supposed to.

When you do raid your drives at least make a fast slice on the outer tracks so all your efforts don't go into complete and utter waste.

[jeeka]

i posted the link to this thread at fluffles and vr-zone, the two big threads on aak/aam

Hey ziddy,
I read thowse two articles/threads and they were great pieces. I think that my experience was the first one to produce a BETA AAM drive specifically for 320GB Drives, as far as I could tell. The vr-zone led me to RevHead, which led me to start leaning in Seagate.

Thanks for all the help!
jeeka.

[jeeka]

Extra fsb actually does something for you, while extra str does basically nothing. Don't compare apples to oranges. Look at raid 0 real world benchmarks, they get nearly no improvements by gaining nearly 100% extra str and here you are making a huge deal over 4.

I was mainly complaining about you wasting Seagate employees' time and flat out bashing them over something so insignificant as this. You are like one of those people that get into a huge fight with the cashier that gave them 2c less change than he was supposed to.

When you do raid your drives at least make a fast slice on the outer tracks so all your efforts don't go into complete and utter waste.

Actually One_Hertz, that is nothing like how I am. If anything I get harped on for being TOO QUIET about stuff. I was not upset as the initial post entailed. I am sorry you perceived it that way. Obviously they were working on a "fix" (we could debate that term as we have) before I even asked, as the file was date Jan 16th, 2008. So I wasn't wasting people's time. I was asking for support for a question I had with a product that I bought. That's all. You have made broad generalizations about how I am as a person based on my post. That's not right.

C'mon man, you are telling me you've never had a bone to pick with something, "significant" or not? You obviously had one to pick with me..?

Seriously though, bottom line, I didn't create the issue, this has been around for MONTHS, I was just the one to make progress on it. For the people who use it, this will help THEM.

We could also argue minute gains in FSB that help performance, seeing as many other things come into play, like strap setting changes, voltages, heat, as you know....It matters more to some than others....I am the "some" and you are the "others" in this case....

Tell all the others who wanted this file that I was wasting people's time....

Agree to disagree.

[One_Hertz]

Actually One_Hertz, that is nothing like how I am. If anything I get harped on for being TOO QUIET about stuff. I was not upset as the initial post entailed. I am sorry you perceived it that way. Obviously they were working on a "fix" (we could debate that term as we have) before I even asked, as the file was date Jan 16th, 2008. So I wasn't wasting people's time. I was asking for support for a question I had with a product that I bought. That's all. You have made broad generalizations about how I am as a person based on my post. That's not right.

C'mon man, you are telling me you've never had a bone to pick with something, "significant" or not? You obviously had one to pick with me..?

Seriously though, bottom line, I didn't create the issue, this has been around for MONTHS, I was just the one to make progress on it. For the people who use it, this will help THEM.

We could also argue minute gains in FSB that help performance, seeing as many other things come into play, like strap setting changes, voltages, heat, as you know....It matters more to some than others....I am the "some" and you are the "others" in this case....

Tell all the others who wanted this file that I was wasting people's time....

Agree to disagree.

The file would have been released in due time by itself, just like for 500gb models. I doubt your complaints caused anything by themselves.

Actually I can't remember ever being so upset at any hardware piece that i had to email the manufacturer about it. I do my research completely in advance so I know what I am getting or have a chance of getting.

Agree to disagree

But seriously, do a fast slice on the outer tracks with your raid 0 setup if you are going raid. It helps a lot, I made one with 3 of my 74gb raptors.

[jeeka]

The file would have been released in due time by itself, just like for 500gb models. I doubt your complaints caused anything by themselves.

Actually I can't remember ever being so upset at any hardware piece that i had to email the manufacturer about it. I do my research completely in advance so I know what I am getting or have a chance of getting.

Agree to disagree

But seriously, do a fast slice on the outer tracks with your raid 0 setup if you are going raid. It helps a lot, I made one with 3 of my 74gb raptors.

Deal.
What kind of benches did you reach on your Raptors setup that way? More importantly did you notice any gains in real world stuff, if your OS was on this slice?

[dinos22]

But seriously, do a fast slice on the outer tracks with your raid 0 setup if you are going raid. It helps a lot, I made one with 3 of my 74gb raptors.

what's a fast slice?


what Raid controller are you using? if you are using the software stuff on motheboards you are wasting time until SSDs come out in full swing heh

i am sick to death of these POS bottlenecking devices in our computers............we have gizzilion core computers and crapillion GB RAM, super fast GFX cards and some crappy old hard drives which have been around for ages and are house and make everything else ancient on the system

i can't wait to get rid of them all. i can understand OPs frustration here but i would be like One_Hertz and not bother as it does nothing at all for performance

[One_Hertz]

what's a fast slice?


what Raid controller are you using? if you are using the software stuff on motheboards you are wasting time until SSDs come out in full swing heh

i am sick to death of these POS bottlenecking devices in our computers............we have gizzilion core computers and crapillion GB RAM, super fast GFX cards and some crappy old hard drives which have been around for ages and are house and make everything else ancient on the system

i can't wait to get rid of them all. i can understand OPs frustration here but i would be like One_Hertz and not bother as it does nothing at all for performance

Fast slice as in take 10% of every drive and make it into one raid setup and the other 90% into the other. This way it uses the outer tracks of every drive. My avg response on my 20gb fast slice is 5.6,ms versus 7.8ms, which is normal for raptors. Its quite a boost.

[jeeka]

Fast slice as in take 10% of every drive and make it into one raid setup and the other 90% into the other. This way it uses the outer tracks of every drive. My avg response on my 20gb fast slice is 5.6,ms versus 7.8ms, which is normal for raptors. Its quite a boost.

Sounds good! I will give it a try.

dinos22, I will be using the P5K ICH9R controller for now. I will then be upgrading to an Areca 1210 for something other than RAID0, I just can't decide whether 5 or 10 would be best....I have been following the RAID threads for quite a while and have some more research to do before I take a leap at the Areca 1210, as well.

a 2 drive RAID0 on the ICH9R will be ok for me right now, then when I get around to my next MB upgrade I will jump on that Areca Card.

I'll let you guys know where I land.
Thanks!
jeeka.

[PossumK]

Well guys? Anyone else try this AAM Firmware? I am interested in your results.
-jeeka.

Just happened to come across this thread today. I have the same 320 GB AAK drive as you. I was never concerned about having AAK firmware since this drive is only used for storage anyway.

My numbers before and after flashing to the AAM beta firmware are pretty close to yours, although my graphs are have higher peaks and dips throughout. Improvements were an increase in max and average read speeds and a decrease in access time.

I ran HD Tune 2.55 for 3 times after a restart:

AAK

Min: 36.0, 38.6, 38.6
Max: 71.8, 71.2, 70.9
Avg: 59.7, 61.5, 61.6
Access: 13.6, 13.2, 13.2
Burst: 149.6, 137.4, 147.0


AAM

Min: 35.4, 38.6, 38.6
Max: 79.0, 79.0, 79.0
Avg: 61.5, 63.0, 63.0
Access: 13.3, 13.0, 13.0
Burst: 148, 146.7, 146.2


-Greg

[eduzs]

I did this firware upgrade, but something is very strange here and I don't know if if caused by this firmware.





SEEK ERROR RATE is very high, and now is 65, need to RMA?

Thanks

[fugufish]

Yay, finally got my account validated. Just want to say thanks Jeeka for getting and posting the 320GB AAM firmware. I have since flashed 3 former AAK drives and their performance has increased.

[jeeka]

Yay, finally got my account validated. Just want to say thanks Jeeka for getting and posting the 320GB AAM firmware. I have since flashed 3 former AAK drives and their performance has increased.

No Prob fugufish. good to know it helped someone.

eduzs, Are you sure you weren't running something at the time of the test? Sometimes, my nod32 likes do me favors and scan stuff in the background. Might want to check that. Since my drives are now in a RAID0, I am not sure I will be able to check each drive's Error Rates against yours. I could yank it out and put in a spare machine and test on that (temporarily breaking my RAID0)...

Good find. Everyone, you might want to check this as well, if you flash to AAM.
-jeeka.

[ziddey]

don't worry

[jeeka]

don't worry

Hey Ziddey,
Could you elaborate?
Thanks!

[eduzs]

The problem was caused by the McAfee Antivirus, see this benchmark with a "clean" windows XP SP2 instalation, using AHCI:



Very good firmware upgrade!!!

3.AAM is essencial for those drives.

I can't read SMART with AHCI mode, HD TUne and HD Scan dont get the data from HD. Is there a way to read SMART when using the HD in AHCI mode???

Thanks

[jeeka]

That is one smooth line there. Very nice. Good job!

[jeeka]

Here's my RAID0 on the P5K Deluxe's ICH9R using the 2 Seagate Drives (2x320GB). One's an AAD and one's and AAM (formerly AAK)

[whitebrow]

Good stuff. I've got an AAD and an AAK, and I'm thinking about adding two more and doing some matrix raid stuff with ICH9R. Was worried about getting more AAK's but it looks like I don't have to anymore.

[eduzs]

Very nice with RAID, but RAID is not ideal for me.
Do you know a way to read SMART in the AHCI mode?
Thanks

[jeeka]

When my disks were in AHCI Mode before the RAID, I could read SMART Info no problem... that's odd. sorry I couldn't give you more input...

[eduzs]

I can read the SMART with ActiveSMART but not with HD Tune or HDDScan.
Tell us when AAM final (not beta) become avaiable.
Thanks

[jeeka]

I can read the SMART with ActiveSMART but not with HD Tune or HDDScan.
Tell us when AAM final (not beta) become avaiable.
Thanks

I read a review on Newegg from someone who said that the AAM final was already out. They don't advertise Firmwares on their site, so I cannot confirm if it's the same BETA or the final....

[Knight]

I need some help in flashing my pair of 7200.10 320GB drives. They are both AAK, but this tool says that I have a different part number. Is there another tool to flash my drives? I believe that mine end in -306.

[swiftex]

Extra fsb actually does something for you, while extra str does basically nothing. Don't compare apples to oranges. Look at raid 0 real world benchmarks, they get nearly no improvements by gaining nearly 100% extra str and here you are making a huge deal over 4.

I was mainly complaining about you wasting Seagate employees' time and flat out bashing them over something so insignificant as this. You are like one of those people that get into a huge fight with the cashier that gave them 2c less change than he was supposed to.

When you do raid your drives at least make a fast slice on the outer tracks so all your efforts don't go into complete and utter waste.

I hear someone making fun of us Canucks, eh! is that right? eh!