Crossflash HDDs?

[Rand__]

Hi,

might be a stupid question, but given that nowadays many new drive models appear that seem primarily distinguished by software/firmware functions I was wondering whether cross flashing of harddrives has been examined previously.

Its being done for HBAs and GPUs and sometime mainboards so why not HDDs?

Sure, some changes might be physical, but the same applies to GPUs for example ...

Just wondering whether I can flash an IronWolf Firmware on soon to be mine Skyhawk drives

 

[archangel.dmitry]

First, you need to find out if both models share same chip. Then, if you happened to brick one of drives. How do you recover from that? I am not sure if drives have recovery mode. Remembering problems with one of Samsung firmware updates, I would say, you have to remove the chip to reprogram it or completely replace it.

 

[Rand__]

Well that Skyhawk will not be mine anytime soon as Amazon cancelled all orders so the discussion has become theoretical as far as I am concerned.
Nevertheless in the old days updating firmware was not totally uncommon, I still have some 1TB Seagates that I updated with an official bios to fix a bug.