On: Tick tick tick... significant number of Seagate hard drives failing

[noonespecial]

The tools to check your drive are windows only.

Use hdparm -i /dev/hd* for ide internal

or

check /proc/scsi/usb-storage for external to see if you're affected in linux.

The article explains how to check in OS X using "About this mac". Sadly, you will need windows to actually update the firmware.