I've had a QNAP TS-509 Pro for several months with 3x Seagate 1.5TB drives (ST31500341AS CC1H).
I've had no failures with this setup - I've been using it for backup, centralized lightroom storage and media streaming to Sonos and PS3. All fine though it is a little noisier than I'd like.
I started to run out of space a little time ago, so I was shopping around for 2 new ST31500341AS
I quickly came across lots of articles on ST31500341AS having problems in all NASes, PCs and other systems. Including Seagate articles on the need to update firmware. (BTW Haven't fully established whether the firmware update fully fixes problems...) Also there are workarounds from QNap and others who turn off write back caching which alleviates failure but obviously degrades performance...
However - its seems that Seagate at any rate says that you don't need to update the firmware if you have CC1H already in this forum
snippet:
"Note: If your drive has CC firmware, your drive is not affected and no further action is required. Attempting to flash the firmware of a drive with CC firmware will result in rendering your drive inoperable."
BUT, lots of people are still reporting issues with ST31500341AS with CC1H firmware:
It seems that the firmware isn't so relevant here - at least its not the same problem as reported on earlier firmware, but there is in general more failures, clicks of death etc reported on these drives
Anyway, I discovered that all late on Wednesday night and decided that I just didn't want the worry/hassle of these drives in my NAS - so I have decided to replace all of them with 5x Samsung HD154UI new F2 1.5TB 5400 rpm 'eco' drives.
These seem to get good reviews on temperate and acoustics (cool and low noise) plus aren't too shabby in performance either. Also its good to see that some people have them working in QNAP boxes already: http://forum.qnap.com/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=16798
I'm not interested in saving the contents of my existing drives - have a new Windows 7 setup to backup now, so will do a new clean install organized around new system.
Does this all make sense?
So what about the 3 drives I'm taking out (which weren't cheap) ? - I'll probably do some more research on the ST31500341AS and may use them as a secondary backup solution - either stick them in the Synology or probably better to have them as standalone offsite copies.
Any comments, advice or whatever gratefully received - I'll report any problems back here too.
