Seagate Kills Linux Support

[praka123]

(Column) - I never thought I would see the day when a hard drive manufacturer would go from indifferent to outright stupid all with one drive release. Apparently, it has happened. It seems that Seagate has opted to forgo compatibility for anyone other than Linux users and that’s a real shame, as I have always been a satisfied Seagate user. And as you might suspect, based on where this article is appearing, I happen to be a full-time Linux user.

Sending A Very Strong Message. I don't really understand what Seagate expects to do here, other than a flurry of negative articles like this one about their otherwise good products. It's a shame, yet Seagate has made their bed, now they will have to deal with the consequences of their choices
Luckily for those of you who purchased one of these drives in good faith, there are workarounds to make them Linux compatible. While this may not really be an issue for Mac owners, I suspect this is going to really cheese off a lot of Linux enthusiasts. Personally, seeing this "Windows-only" behavior tells me that Seagate is no longer interested in our business.


Overreacting? Some people have asked if all of us are perhaps overreacting to the situation. These same people have brought up the otherwise valid point that for the most part, companies like Western Digital will be able to more than pick up the slack
So yes, the market will eventually take care of this and those of you who are fine with Seagate's narrow-minded vision will use those products, while we take another path entirely. But it does not excuse the painfully obvious cue from Microsoft that the drives in question have apparently been preformatted as NTFS. Again, Seagate has made their views loud and clear as far as I’m concerned.

Even more comical is the official stance that states that despite workarounds mentioned previously, the company has zero intention to support any of them even in the name of customer service.

Welcome Back, Western Digital! I never thought I would see the day when hard drives were added to the Linux compatibility list of works or needed a workaround. But it seems that Seagate has made history there. Way to go guys, too bad we Linux users, being geeks, likely make up more hard drive sales than you likely figured into this boneheaded maneuver.

As the headlines are filling up with Seagate's recent acquisition of metalincs, it's a shame to see the vendor now having to narrow their business to one spectrum while expanding it on another.

http://www.madpenguin.org/cms/?m=show&id=8121

[Hitboxx]

Sheesh! that's a shame, wtf Seagate!!

[slugger]

looks like Matt Hartley was living under a stone to have posted this News a millenium late

Seagate releases workaround for Linux users

[praka123]

aah!then gr8!but see the date!this article is on 17th this month !

[slugger]

Originally Posted by praka123

....the date!this article is on 17th this month !

thats y i siad he was living under a stone

those drives were released last year

and updates also released the same year

[praka123]

I think his message is not clear! and what he wrote seems to be applicable for all seagate drives,while it doesnt. He is whining about seagate freeagent hdd's by default comes formatted with ntfs and msdos disklabel?

So what?is the answer from many Linux users.still..see the problem with powesaving mode:

The latest batch of external drives from Seagate, the so-called Free Agent series are not compatible with Linux, but some workarounds have been discovered.

The main problem relates to the power-saving systems on these drives, while the other – the NTFS formatting is used – is just a small issue,because the recent Linux kernels come with NTFS writing enabled.

The power saving timer shuts the drive off after a few minutes of inactivity and closes the USB connection. When the connection comes back, it returns as USB1, not USB0, as it is initially.

One of the workarounds is as simple as possible, but becomes annoying after trying it a few times. The user has to disconnect the USB connector and plug it back into the computer, so that the drive would return to full power mode.

The most efficient workaround is by using a method that involves Windows. Nathan Papadopulos, a Seagate "disk spinner", came up with the solution.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Worka...nt-73528.shtml

[slugger]

well the NTFS partitions shudnt be a problem for Linux

as for the power management feature...it was meant to save power...seagate not to be blamed if it helps the end-user save up some electricity

ya his post was indeed quite misleading...so googled it....found out about the free Agent disks.....released in Dec 2007...so said released last year

[ax3]

hein ..... e ka hai .... bt power saving is good ......