also see http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/18/barracuda_firmware_upgrade_and_recovery/ Failure rate is estimated 30% of 7200.11 drives. Seagate has confirmed officially that there is indeed a problem. The drives go into a permanent head park mode; no data is lost, but there's no way to get it without going thru a data recovery lab.
From Seagate, the hard drive models with the defective firmware: Barracuda 7200.11 ST31000340AS ST3750330AS ST3640330AS ST3500320AS ST31500341AS ST31000333AS ST3640323AS ST3640623AS ST3320613AS ST3320813AS ST3160813AS Barracuda ES.2 SATA ST31000340NS ST3750330NS ST3500320NS ST3250310NS DiamondMax 22 STM31000340AS STM3750330AS STM3500320AS STM31000334AS STM3320614AS STM3160813AS STM31000333AS http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=207931
Me too! I was just getting ready to pull the trigger on a pair of refurbished 7200.11's when I spotted this. Now I'm going to have to order either Samsung or WDC's... probably going to go with the Sammy's. The F1 Spinpoint drives have been getting rave reviews for speed and quietness.
The best customer rated Seagate HDD is the 7200.10, 250G, single platter, "410AS". I have one.. HD Tune reads about 90-95MBs on the outer 40%... 15.3ms access. I don't know that it is "especially" anything, but it does run cool and quiet, even when accessing. The new 7200.12, 500G, single platter HDD also has "410AS" firmware, so I ordered one. With greater areal density, should be a bit faster..
All the seagate's I've got are heck of noisy. This is 1 more reason for me to stay away from them now. WDC's have been more quiet and reliable.
bought a 7200.10 500GB 3 months ago/ it makes a lot of clicking sounds during disk access. scared the shxt out of me at first, but touch wood, disk seems to be working ok though.