New Seagate Drives Have Real Difficulties With Linux 361
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!
Re:Actually (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Actually (Score:1, Insightful)
Powersaving mode comes back up as USB 1? (Score:4, Insightful)
But this is an amazingly foolish mistake on Seagate's part.
Re:Bad summary... (Score:5, Insightful)
Will Seagate sign only deals from propietary M$? (Score:0, Insightful)
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?
No more Seagate if they produce useless crap (Score:5, Insightful)
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.Compatibility (Score:2, Insightful)
And when combined with this story: http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2007/12/07/western_digital_drm_crippled_harddrive/ [channelregister.co.uk]
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.
Re:Power-saving? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Solution is simple (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Bad summary... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Bad summary... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Windows-only configuration program exists (Score:3, Insightful)
- "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.
Re:Compatibility (Score:2, Insightful)
Also, note that the WD DRM thing is because they built it to use their network service; if you don't use the service, the drive works just like any other drive. It's a stupid service, but the only reason the service doesn't work on linux is that there isn't any market for it, not some complicated conspiracy.
Re:Power-saving? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No more Seagate if they produce useless crap (Score:5, Insightful)
Or: "This is a issue with Linux taking longer then expected by us to identify itself as USB 2 compatible upon the hard drive leaving standby mode. Unfortunately, the timeout is hardcoded in the drive's USB interface and cannot be changed; Linux users are advised to use the entirely unsupported workarounds detailed on our website or choose a different product."
Both responses would have saved face. Linux users can stomach some fairly complex workarounds (especially since those workarounds tend to end up as transparent fixes in places like the kernel), but they won't accept "Linux is not supported".
Re:Power-saving? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Compatibility (Score:2, Insightful)
Claiming that it is some mass conspiracy against Linux is a bit alarmist at this point, since it is only Seagate who is producing an apparently "anti-Linux" drive.
The WD drives also work just fine, as long as you don't use their Mionet thing. In addition, you can transfer any content you like on Mionet, you just can't have certain types of files available for anybody and everybody to have access to at their choosing. You can still transfer the restricted files, as long as you are logged into your account. The Mionet limitations exists most probably to cover themselves from the lawsuit-happy Mafiaa people. Considering how much WD is worth, compared to a normal user, WD would be a juicy target to hit.
And yes, WD could supply themselves with the lawyers necessary to keep them from actually losing the case, but the cost of having the lawyers and the cost of the publicity would still hurt badly. Unfortunately for them, the publicity of the restrictions has been blown severely out of proportions and will be hurting them, as well. Yes, there are restrictions, and yes, people with their own MP3's and AVI's are getting shafted when they want to share them, but all of the news stories about the restrictions (most of which seem to base their own information on the Reg's story) are making it sound like nobody can access this stuff, at all. That is simply not true.
Damned if they do, damned if they don't.
As for Seagate, I can understand the drives being sent as NTFS, and I can understand, if some newish programmer or head dev were in charge, how the remounting would be messed up.
Why lash out, and claim a conspiracy, when it may not be? Wait until we have a bit more information than simply knowing that X and Y features don't work with Linux.
Re:No more Seagate if they produce useless crap (Score:4, Insightful)
can make it work on all the mainline OSes (Sorry, Seagate- Linux happens to be one of them...), but they didn't do their due dilligence
and when caught out on it, they resorted to the "Linux isn't supported" BS (But then neither is MacOS for that matter- heh...lame.).
That doesn't engender a desire for me to buy any more of their stuff- ever again.
Re:No more Seagate if they produce useless crap (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Bad summary... (Score:3, Insightful)
Just to be clear (Score:4, Insightful)
They won't get the message. (Score:4, Insightful)
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.