flash 4kn firmware to 512e device ?

[reukiodo]

I have a few ST8000NM0055-1RM112 which according to https://www.seagate.com/www-content/pro ... 1510us.pdf are in 512e format, however there exists a sibling ST8000NM0045 which is in 4kn format.

I would like to switch my drives to 4kn format, and I found https://www.synoforum.com/resources/upg ... y-nas.182/ for switching, but that doesn't seem to apply to these disks, as only 512e is available.

I found https://files.hddguru.com/index.php?act ... y=Firmware updates/Seagate& which appears to be the firmware corresponding to the ST8000NM0045 drive with 4kn format.

Before I go do something potentially dumb, is it simply a matter of flashing the ST8000NM0045 firmware to these ST8000NM0055 drives to get them into 4kn format?

I know I could just purchase new 4kn drives, but I'd prefer to use what I already have.

[napalm_atx]

reukiodo, Drive just will not accept wrong firmware

[reukiodo]

Code:

2024-02-28 09:12:14 root@anurawyn:~# openSeaChest_Format -d /dev/sg0 --showSupportedFormats
==========================================================================================
openSeaChest_Format - openSeaChest drive utilities - NVMe Enabled
Copyright (c) 2014-2023 Seagate Technology LLC and/or its Affiliates, All Rights Reserved
openSeaChest_Format Version: 3.0.4-6_2_0 X86_64
Build Date: Dec  4 2023
Today: Wed Feb 28 09:12:48 2024        User: root
==========================================================================================

/dev/sg0 - ST8000NM0055-1RM112 - ZA16DXZA - SN02 - ATA

WARNING: Customer unique firmware may have specific requirements that
         restrict sector sizes on some products. It may not be possible to format/
         fast format to common sizes like 4K or 512B due to these customer requirements.


Supported Logical Block Sizes and Protection Types:
---------------------------------------------------
  * - current device format
PI Key:
  Y - protection type supported at specified block size
  N - protection type not supported at specified block size
  ? - unable to determine support for protection type at specified block size
Relative performance key:
  N/A - relative performance not available.
  Best   
  Better 
  Good   
  Degraded
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Logical Block Size  PI-0  PI-1  PI-2  PI-3  Relative Performance  Metadata Size
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*               512     Y     N     N     N                   N/A            N/A
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2024-02-28 09:12:48 root@anurawyn:~# hdparm -I /dev/sda|grep Sector
        Logical  Sector size:                   512 bytes
        Physical Sector size:                  4096 bytes
        Logical Sector-0 offset:                  0 bytes
2024-02-28 09:12:58 root@anurawyn:~#


If that is the case, that I cannot flash the 4kn firmware to this 512e drive, is there another way to force the drive to use 4k mode to match its physical sector size?

[reukiodo]

I wanted to personally validate that claim, and it is true that the software does not want to allow cross-model firmware flashing:

Code:

2024-03-01 09:54:50 root@anurawyn:~# openSeaChest_Firmware -d /dev/sg0 --downloadFW firmware/MakaraPlusEntCapSATA-STD-4kN-NN05.LOD
==========================================================================================
openSeaChest_Firmware - openSeaChest drive utilities - NVMe Enabled
Copyright (c) 2014-2023 Seagate Technology LLC and/or its Affiliates, All Rights Reserved
openSeaChest_Firmware Version: 4.0.0-6_2_0 X86_64
Build Date: Dec  4 2023
Today: Fri Mar  1 09:55:11 2024        User: root
==========================================================================================

/dev/sg0 - ST8000NM0055-1RM112 - ZA16DXZA - SN02 - ATA
.
Firmware Download failed

2024-03-01 09:55:11 root@anurawyn:~#