My Experience with Seagate's Hybrid SSDs (SSHDs)

[Dennis Mungai]

Hello people, and good evening.

For the last better part of last year, I've been using 1 TB Laptop Hybrid SSDs (SSHDs) from Seagate, fell back to Hitachi, and finally, to the third iteration of their most recent SSHDs, notably the standard 9.5mm 1 TB version. Yet to play with the slim (7mm) SSHDs, though. Here's my experience so far:

Seagate HDDs are unpredictable  when it comes to both performance and life expectancy, notably due to terrible firmware,and as such, your  mileage may vary considerably. But first, to the brass-tacks.

1. If you're going to buy a Seagate SSHD, don't bother with the 1st and 2nd Gen series. They called them Momentus XT-Series and came with capacities ranging from 320GB to 1 TB SSHDs. Reasons: Shitty firmware. They brick faster than the warranty period offered. Speaking from experience, and the many online forum posts I've scoured.

2. Go straight to the 2013 SSHD Models. The 1TB SSHDs (Preferred) have the base build of ST1000LM014-1EJ164 , and initially come with the SM11 firmware. Update to the latest firmware, SM16, to solve noise issues with head seek and to solve the PCB Overheating issue. The new firmware update is critical.

3. Enjoy the SSHD. They are pretty fast, and they load cached stuff from the 8GB MLC-SLC NAND Flash combo very rapidly.

Regards,

Dennis

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[dieg...@gmail.com]

Hi, I have found this post because I am looking for the SM16 firmware download or lasted, but I can't find the download link, can you post the link please? thks a lot!

[Mike Kohler]

Dennis, I just wanted to thank you for the information!

I have two ST1000LM014-1EJ164 in my MacBook Pro and both had SM11. The update may have fixed the Sleep problem the MBP had since using these drives. It would wake up from Sleep, but then freeze after a few minutes of using it.

Since the Seagate info on how to update the firmware using a Mac is a bit lacking I want to detail how I did the update.

After downloading the correct firmware package ISOboot-SeagateFirmwareUpdate.LaptopSSHD-KahunaV-SM16.sgpti-31603.iso
I backed up my drives, then removed one of them from the MBP to connect to a Windows laptop via USB, trying to flash it from a bootable USB stick.
That did not work. The externally connected drive was recognized, but could not be flashed.

On the Mac however, the bootable USB Stick was not working, so I finally burned the ISO to a CD via Disk Utility on the Mac, re-mounted the drive into the MBP and after booting from the externally mounted CD, I could flash both SSHDs, one connected to SATA and one to ATA where the DVD drive used to be.

There may be a way to boot with a USB Stick on Mac, but I think it requires a change to the EFI.

I hope this helps someone, as it is not always obvious if these firmware updates can be done with a Mac at all.

[segurida...@gmail.com]

https://apps1.seagate.com/downloads/request.html  use model and serial number.

[Dennis Mungai]

You're welcome, Mike.

Seems a went well on your firmware upgrade.

Thanks for the extra info on the process on a Mac.

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[Dennis Mungai]

Hello Diego,

Please see https://apps1.seagate.com/downloads/request.html

Enter your serial number there and you'll get the HDDs firmware there.

Related, what OS are you running?

[Dennis Mungai]

Mike,

On the issue with the USB external casing, I realized that happens because some of these SATA controllers in these enclosures do not implement the full SATA protocols. For instance, if you had set the HDDs BIOS password and then inserted said drive into a caddy, the OS couldn't initialize it. On Linux, it spits weird errors about ata in dmesg.

Kinda weird coz one might think the HDD is dead until one realizes some of these USB enclosures were made by wankers who don't implement the full SATA signalling protocols.

Others (WD, anyone?) take this douchebaggery to a whole new level, giving the wrong disk geometry to cap disk size instead of the vendor sticking with the proper HBAs to do that. So yeah, kinda sucks.

On 3 Dec 2014 11:47, "Mike Kohler" <dentec...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Nelson Reimy]

Hello

How I can do to get the firmware update (ST1000LM014-1EJ164)? if I do not have the serial number, as the hard disk is installed on the laptop, and removing it is somewhat cumbersome

[Nelson Reimy]

Hello

Answer the question myself, I can determine the serial number of my drive SSHD, using the application "drivedetect.exe ''

the link this support as is done  >>>>  http://support.seagate.com/firmware/drive_config.html

[Dennis Mungai]

If you are on Linux, you can get the same information from hdparm.

On Windoze, use a freeware utility such as hwinfo or commercial software such as AIDA64 Extreme Edition.

[Harsh Panchal]

I have ST1000LM014-1EJ164 sshd ,initially came with ms02 firmware!

i tried to check firmware update on seagate site but it always says 'no firmware available'

can you please mail me the firmware?

[Dennis Mungai]

Hello Harsh,

For the firmware files, you can only download them from Seagate.

Ensure that you enter the correct serial number when searching for the
firmware from the seagate website, otherwise you'll get no valid
results.

The model number is not enough. You must supply the drive's serial number.

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[Dennis Mungai]

Hello Harsh, et al,

I have been able to recover the required firmware from my backups (from 2013).

You can find the device's firmware below in the OneDrive folder:

https://1drv.ms/f/s!AjAHK3AVf89trBoGpuNCjw4MCinq

Unzip the archive (use 7-zip), view the enclosed documentation and
follow all instructions and warnings.

Thanks and regards,

Dennis Mungai.