Hardware Podcasts

Barracuda 7200.11: broken firmware is broken software!

Oxide and Friends · 8 Jun 2021 · 57m · Episode 6

What this episode covers

Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal of Oxide Computer Company, joined by Rick Altherr, Bill Blum, and others, recount firmware disasters with Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 drives, Western Digital Sparta, and LSI HBAs. They detail how proprietary firmware bugs, such as polarity errors and incorrect fly height calculations, caused massive latency outliers and drive failures, leading to customer distress and vendor gaslighting. The group argues that the lack of source control and transparency in vendor firmware necessitates an open-source firmware ecosystem to allow for debugging and customization at scale.

Most relevant to

early-stage companies

Topics

Mentioned

Companies
Seagate, Western Digital, LSI, Sun, STec, Gnutek, EMC
Products
Barracuda 7200.11, Sparta, ILOM

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