Most “intelligent” computer components have firmware. Firmware can be though of as a translator between the operating system and the hardware component itself, and also as a software program that controls certain parameters of the device.
Hard drives all contain firmware, which is responsible not only for “decoding” the interface between operating system and data stored on the drive, but it’s also capable of controlling slider fly height (the height at which the read/write heads, embedded into the slider, fly above the surface platters) as well as drive operating volume, error correction, and a host of other hard drive operations.
Usually, the firmware on a hard drive requires updating only when there is a specific flaw. Seagate experienced this early in 2009, with their 7200.11 series of hard drives. They did issue a firmware update that rectified the problem – but not before many people had spent money on expensive data recovery.
Computer systems contain firmware – usually on the motherboard – but again, this is not typically updated by users with any regularity, unless an issue is discovered following its release. That said, motherboard manufacturers do release firmware updates from time to time.
NAS storage devices are the devices we most often encounter with firmware (or “software”) update problems. Manufacturers of these devices appear to release numerous firmware updates. We imagine that one of the main reasons for this is that they need to be compatible with as many software packages as possible, as well as with all manner of hardware devices likely to be attached to the NAS.
However, firmware or software updates with NAS are fraught with danger, and it is strongly advised to make a secure backup of all the data on the NAS before updating the firmware.
Firmware failures on NAS devices can cause loss of access, corruption to the RAID or JBOD parameters, file system corruption and even reinitialisation of the disk or array.
