Updating the HGST HDD & SSD firmware

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Captain Power

New Member
Mar 29, 2023
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shpitz461 said:
Hi @napalm_atx , I just bought a NetApp DS224C with several Seagate 10k rpm SAS3 drives.

The label says they have NA02 firmware, and I found NA05 firmware here:

kb.netapp.com

CONTAP-326891: NA05/NE05/MS05 FW release for SSKBE and ST*MM model drives

CONTAP-326891: NA05/NE05/MS05 FW release for SSKBE and ST*MM model drives
kb.netapp.com kb.netapp.com

But it's behind a paywall.

The drives are:
p/n X342A-R6, model X342_SSKBE1T2A10, 1.2TB

The are Seagate model ST1200MM0018.

Any chance I can flash them to Seagate firmware? I couldn't find Seagate nor NetApp firmware for this drive on your website.

Will I be able to format them to 4k sectors? I believe they are 512E.

Thanks!
Click to expand...
You need to update them to Netapp NA05 or reflash to Seagate original?

BTW - Netapp disks are 520b formatted - but here you can see

Future-proof your storage solutions with advanced format interfaces of 512 Emulation and 4K Native.
Click to expand...
So you will be able to use these disks with 4k format

This guy can help you. He has some commercial interest.
 
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Captain Power

New Member
Mar 29, 2023
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shpitz461 said:
Either way will work. Can't find NA05 to download anywhere, it's behind a paywall.
Click to expand...
You can update Netapp firmware via Netapp storage with actual ONTAP, but it will be 520b.
You can reflash it to Seagate originalon your PC - and change it to 512b.
 
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evaristo.quintao

New Member
Jan 26, 2025
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hardwaretuner said:
searching for newer Firmware than A900


Vendor: WDC
Product: WUSTR1515ASS200
P/N: 0B40378
Revision: A900

only match found, was on DELL site with K968 for WUSTR1515ASS200 drives, but thats no solution right?
Click to expand...
Hi hardwaretuner, I also have 10 units, all "A" prefix (intended for retail customer), some A925, some A969.

I'm also trying to find firmware version A969. I contacted WD Enterprise Support, but they referred me to WD Direct Customer Support, who then directed me to SanDisk Support. Finally, SanDisk stated they only provide support to companies with an enterprise contract. They denied a firmware update for a perfectly good SSD that could, without warning, lose data due to a software development error.

Have you found the firmware yet?
 
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evaristo.quintao

New Member
Jan 26, 2025
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ElCoyote_ said:
New firmware obtained from WDC/HGST/Sandisk after multiple support calls:

P/N: 0B40379

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Vendor: WDC
Product: WUSTR1515ASS201
Revision: B969

Firmware B925 has a known early fail issue, resolved by updating to B969.
Advisory: High Grade Dedicated Servers - Upgrading your SSD SAS Western Digital SS530 firmware

Firmware BIN added to my HGST SSD archive: Dropbox

# ls -la *bin
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 2572288 Jul 17 11:35 BPGNB969.bin
Click to expand...
Hi, Elcoyote.

Could you repost the link with the firmware? How was you able to obtain the firmware? They just denied me by e-mail.

I contacted WD Enterprise Support, but they referred me to WD Direct Customer Support, who then directed me to SanDisk Support. Finally, SanDisk stated they only provide support to companies with an enterprise contract. They denied a firmware update for a perfectly good SSD that could, without warning, lose data due to a software development error.
 
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evaristo.quintao

New Member
Jan 26, 2025
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mustamyy said:
I'm also looking for BPGNA969 for WD Ultrastar SS530 WUSTR6432ASS200. I was able to upgrade to A957 with storcli, but upgrade to B969 fails.
I was wondering, if the file could be modified manually, as we have A/B/C versions of release 957 in napalm_atx's mega folder, as well as B969. There is a block of about 260 bytes difference between the A/B/C files, plus few other single byte differences, which seem to clearly indicate the version. But chatgpt was against trying to modify the B969 file so that it would pass as type A firmware. From what I gathered these differences are outside of CRC or signed areas, but I have no experience in this sort of stuff.
Also compared the Dell K968 file, it's different from B969.

After the copyright notice there are these sequences that contain the version:
Code: 
A957 00 10 00 00 74 02 00 00 08 0F 01 01 FF FF FF FF 01 02 03 00 8C 04 CA FF 12 24
B957 00 10 00 00 74 02 00 00 08 0F 02 01 FF FF FF FF 01 02 03 00 8C 04 C9 FF 12 24
C957 00 10 00 00 74 02 00 00 08 0F 00 01 FF FF FF FF 01 02 03 00 8C 04 CB FF 12 24
B969 00 10 00 00 74 02 00 00 08 0F 02 01 FF FF FF FF 01 02 03 00 91 04 C9 FE 12 24
K968 00 10 00 00 74 02 10 00 08 0F 01 01 FF FF FF FF 01 01 03 00 91 04 BA FE 12 24
Click to expand...
Hi, mustamyy.

Have you tried to update the code and use an altered B696 version as if it was a A969?

And, could you share the latest "A" version thar you have?Please.
 
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agittins

New Member
Apr 29, 2026
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This is quite the epic thread!

I've picked up a few 6TB HUS726060AL5214 drives that have NetApp firmware (hugo says APNACDM2). P/N 0F22881. I've seen a post or two of folks with the same netapp drive looking for firmware but without any luck, although I see that e123 does offer unlocking/flashing of these.

The drive I'm testing seems to work well, and offers SMART info, but issuing a long smart test fails fairly quickly, and the `smartctl -x` log shows a lot of "Require write or reassign blocks command" and "successfully reassigned" going on, but the disk shows zero "elements in grown defect list". I've seen reports of other hgst/netapp models (4tb mostly) that fail smart tests if under load, and some (1tb?) that always fail if not updated to a later firmware, so I'm thinking/guessing/hoping there's a release to fix this and it's not an actual issue with my drive (I've only opened one for testing so far).

My disk in SMART shows:
```
Vendor: HGST
Product: HUS726060AL5214
Revision: NE01
```
rather than showing `NETAPP` and `X316_HAKPE06TA07`, which @Pheckphul 's drives return, despite appearing identical otherwise.


Getting to the point....
- I see at CONTAP-85802: Disks can report incorrect power on hours that NetApp seem to have new firmware *(as of this year?)* for this drive, does anyone have access to this?
- Is it still true that the only way I could flash to APGNCD05 (which appears to be the latest generic) to these disks would be to have e131 do an unlock on them?
 
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risty

Member
Oct 6, 2016
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Hi guys!
I bought IBM/HGST HUSTR7619ASS201 SAS SSD. It belongs to HGST Ultrastar SS300 series. For IBM it has 4k physical and logical sector size.
I wanted to pass it to ESXI 8 as RAW/RDM disk but surprisingly ESXI doesn't support 4k sas ssd's.
So now im looking for solution how to format it to 512 sector size.
I've already tried HGST Device Manager 3.4.0. It doest allow me to re-format disk to 512
Please advice me next steps. Should i use some another tool to format disk to 512? Or should i crossflash(with some uncertain firmware and tool ) disk to genuine HGST firmware first and then use HGST Device Manager ?
 
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egn

Member
Dec 22, 2025
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This looks similar to my IBM-SSGPSLU7P6 SSDs with 528 sector.
You are probably out of luck.
The only way to use the disks is to use them as is.
Did you try a sg_dd with native blocksize?
If this works then they accessible in principle and can be used with a software that uses only 4096 bytes of a sector.
 
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risty

Member
Oct 6, 2016
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I've also tried HUGO-7.5.1. It flawlessly works with 4096 sector size
Bash: 
hugo.exe format -g /dev/sg0 -b 4096 --fastformat -n max
but doesn't work with 512 bytes ((
 
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risty

Member
Oct 6, 2016
34
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risty said:
I've also tried HUGO-7.5.1. It flawlessly works with 4096 sector size
Bash: 
hugo.exe format -g /dev/sg0 -b 4096 --fastformat -n max
but doesn't work with 512 bytes ((
Click to expand...
wdckit tool says that device type is not supported.
Yes, it looks like only 4096 bytes sector usage scenarios are available.
 
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egn

Member
Dec 22, 2025
36
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What we can learn out of this and other IBM drive encounters - stay away from IBM branded drives.
 
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