Hard Drive Update for Power Mac G4s

[Al Poulin]

I am  cross-posting this.  I queried another e-list in digest mode but no
one has yet responded with personal experience.

I just learned that I should update the firmware on my 40GB IBM hard drive.
This is on a Quicksilver G4 733.  The Apple instructions says the update
"improves the longevity of some hard drives shipped in certain Power Mac G4
computers...."  The updater shows up in:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=120230 for OS 9 and in:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=120231 for OS X.

How exactly does the update change the operation of the hard drive to make
it live longer?  Will the drive suffer premature death without the firmware
update?  This machine is already over two and a half years old.

I ran just the diagnostic part of the software.  To actually update the
drive's firmware requires that I back up the drive.  That's ok since I'm
going to reformat it anyway.

The update applies to these G4s:  Cube, AGP Graphics, Digital Audio, Gigabit
Ethernet, and Quicksilver.

Does anyone regret making the update?

By the way, one poster on the other list provided this interesting link:
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/mac/20056
Some people had problems, but one comment pointed to human error.

Thanks,

-- 
Al Poulin
Anger, hate, and revenge are for the devil, forgiveness is for God,
proactive self-defense is for the rest of us.