Yes. Certified drives typically run our custom firmware. I think there may be a few drives we have certified that are exactly the same as the normal drives sold. Certified drives may differ in specifications, like write cache, as well.
Attempts to upgrade firmware on a Constellation2 1TB drive with firware AS0B fails using Dell updater. This was performed on an r630 w/ Windows Server 2012R2. Both of these are on the supported OS/Hardware list.   Running the updater (SAS-Drive_Firmware_XXTFT_WN64_AS0B_A08.EXE) results in an error message "Hardware is not Compatible".   KB Article: [URL]   The Seagate drives were purchased from another vendor and the firmware version on them is not compatible with our MD38xx disk array - thus requiring the firmware upgrade. Any thoughts and assistance?  
Updating Seagate SAS ST91000640SS firmware fails