So, just as a followup. The problem I was having is still happening. I managed to finally downgrade the drives to FW 800 (or that is at least what the flash utility said they were when they finished ((I even double checked by putting the drives back in and rebooting and trying to flash them again))).
Unfortunately it didn't work. The drives still act the same way with the controller, so either the firmware flash doesn't set it back to exactly what a 800 FW drive would look like to a controller or there have been hardware changes or something. Now, Hitachi is a corporation, and probably a lazy one, so I would guess the hardware hasn't changed, unless maybe these drives came from a different plant? Unlikely. The more likely answer seems to be that the firmware isn't really identical, there is also a MLC label on the drive that is different between firmware versions and that may have a lot to do with it as well.
Either way I am literally sitting here in limbo with that server, unable to do anything until Areca updates their firmware to get back to compatible with these drives and their new FW... Wonder if that will actually happen.
TT
