On Jun 23, 2009, at 7:46 PM, Dana Collins wrote:

> Worse that can happen is the Spinpoint will be relegated to an
> external FW case and I'll settle back on a trusty IBM 10-Gigger.

I think the Spinpoints are great values. Samsung made a nice drive  
the first time out of the gate.

But, its firmware flaw, coupled with a firmware flaw in Apple  
Lombards and Pismos, was a no-go.

Toshiba and others also had the very same problem with Lombards and  
Pismos.

Also IBM (then doing business under its own name, and not Hitachi).

At one point, OWC maintained a drive compatibility chart showing  
which drives would not work on Lombards and Pismos. This was known  
generally as the "Lombard and Pismo ATA-6 problem".

If the drive had tolerant firmware, then it would work on the flawed  
Lombards and Pismos.

If the drive didn't have tolerant firmware, then there was a "deadly  
embrace" as both the host (Lombard or Pismo) and the target (the  
drive) both refused to accept each other's parameters.

Fixed on later Spinpoints with a factory applied firmware revision  
(the model number didn't "roll").

Fixed on IBMs and Toshibas with new drive versions (the model number  
"rolled").

Seagate never had the problem at all as its 2.5" drives (Momentus)  
were released very late, after the ATA-6 problem had been identified  
and fixed by all the others (except for Apple).

I now prefer Momentus drives for my 2.5" applications. The 500 GB  
drive is particularly nice (but all are good).



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