Strange issue with PE2950, Perc Raid, and Hitachi 2TB drives

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SJConsultant

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Poweredge 2950, Perc 5i Integrated Raid Controller.

Had a mix of SAS/Sata Drives.
0 - 73GB SAS
1 - 73GB SAS
2 - 500GB SATA
3 - 500GB SATA
4 - 500GB SATA
5 - 73GB SAS

I removed drives 2 thru 5 and replaced with 2TB Hitachi (Newegg). Drive Bay 2 doesn't spin up as quickly as the other bays and eventually displays a steady flashing light. So I swap any of the other 2TB drives into that bay and same thing happens. Openmanage does not acknowledge the 2TB drive is in bay 2

Thinking that the drive bay may have just died, I put back one of the 500GB drives and it spins up normally including a steady lit light. Openmanage acknowledges 500GB drive, Swap back in 2TB, blinking light. WTF?

I've tried several SAS and Sata drives of varying sizes in bay 2 and all are recognized correctly by Perc and Openmanage except these new Hitachi 2TB drives. PE2950 firmware has been updated to latest versions including Bios, perc, backplane, etc.

Anyone have insight as to why *one* bay out of 6 refuses to work with this specific drive from Hitachi?
 
I assume you tried moving the problematic drive to another port to try and isolate whether the issue is 1 bad drive or an larger problem with a controller/drive incompatibility with Hitachi 5K3000 series drives.

And just to reiterate you swapped in multiple 5K3000 drives (P/N: 0F12117) and every drive was not recognized by the Perc5i on that port? If the Hitachi drives are recognized on other ports it sounds like an issue with the Perc5i.
 
1010 said:
I assume you tried moving the problematic drive to another port to try and isolate whether the issue is 1 bad drive or an larger problem with a controller/drive incompatibility with Hitachi 5K3000 series drives.

And just to reiterate you swapped in multiple 5K3000 drives (P/N: 0F12117) and every drive was not recognized by the Perc5i on that port? If the Hitachi drives are recognized on other ports it sounds like an issue with the Perc5i.
Click to expand...

You are correct in your assumptions. None of the 6 Hitachi 5K3000 drives are recognized on bay 2 , however, the Hitachi drives are recognized on 0,1,3,4, and 5.

Bay 2 has no problems recognizing any other sas or sata drives that I have available here, just not the new Hitachi 5K3000 drives.


Could the problem be with the backplane rather than the Perc5i?
 
Controller bios show the drive online when in slot 2?
Have you reset the controller and recreated the arrays?
Put on of the non-2TB drive in #2 and call it a day :)

If it is really a hardware problem I would suspect the backplane.

p.s. If you can replace the controller with a perc6i your iops will double with those newer drives.
 
This is interesting. I have 8 of the 5k3000's and a perc 5i (not in a dell server). While doing some testing I noticed Drive 2 as listed in the perc bios would be missing sometimes after a full shutdown. If I let it sit for a bit in the bios it seemed to show back up.

I did move drives around it was always disk 2... I changed out the cables and it hasn't happened since, but I have only done 2 or 3 shutdowns since.
 
zEp said:
Controller bios show the drive online when in slot 2?
Have you reset the controller and recreated the arrays?
Click to expand...

Nope.. Perc5i Bios does not show the 2TB drive. I reset the controller and same results.

zEp said:
Put on of the non-2TB drive in #2 and call it a day :)
Click to expand...

Kinda defeats the purpose of purchasing 2TB hard drives for this server.:p

zEp said:
If it is really a hardware problem I would suspect the backplane.

p.s. If you can replace the controller with a perc6i your iops will double with those newer drives.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info on the IOPs, I'll need to determine whether the cause of this issue is the Perc or the backplane prior to upgrading to a Perc6.

Bob21 said:
This is interesting. I have 8 of the 5k3000's and a perc 5i (not in a dell server). While doing some testing I noticed Drive 2 as listed in the perc bios would be missing sometimes after a full shutdown. If I let it sit for a bit in the bios it seemed to show back up.

I did move drives around it was always disk 2... I changed out the cables and it hasn't happened since, but I have only done 2 or 3 shutdowns since.
Click to expand...

Well.... Glad to hear that I'm not the only one who seems to have this problem. :p However, so far, nothing I do will make the drive recognizable in bay 2.
 
Perc = Blah .... disable it and get an LSI or Adap.

Anyways sounds like the SAS/SATA back plane might be toasted or going to be toasted soon.
 
SJConsultant said:
You are correct in your assumptions. None of the 6 Hitachi 5K3000 drives are recognized on bay 2 , however, the Hitachi drives are recognized on 0,1,3,4, and 5.

Bay 2 has no problems recognizing any other sas or sata drives that I have available here, just not the new Hitachi 5K3000 drives.


Could the problem be with the backplane rather than the Perc5i?
Click to expand...

It's possible, but I kind of doubt it's the backplane. The backplane passes on commands transparently. It shouldn't act one way for one drive and differently for another. Did you test and see if results were reproducible when connecting the Hitachi drive to that port directly? Take the hot-swap bay/backplane out of the equation.

If you have the option and the Perc5i card is under warranty, call up Dell, escalate the call, maybe you can get someone in QA or engineering to see if they can replicate results.
 
1010 said:
It's possible, but I kind of doubt it's the backplane. The backplane passes on commands transparently. It shouldn't act one way for one drive and differently for another. Did you test and see if results were reproducible when connecting the Hitachi drive to that port directly? Take the hot-swap bay/backplane out of the equation..
Click to expand...

Not possible with what I have here. The Perc5i is a daughtercard that uses two cables to plug into the backplane. I dont' have any cables here that would allow me to connect the drive directly to the Perc card and bypass the backplane.

1010 said:
If you have the option and the Perc5i card is under warranty, call up Dell, escalate the call, maybe you can get someone in QA or engineering to see if they can replicate results.
Click to expand...

No warranty on this particular unit.


I'm thinking maybe trying a different make or model drive to see if that particular port will recognize any 2TB drive. Worse comes to worse I'll just have to rework how we were going to utilize this system.
 
Sorry to bump such an old thread, but I have exactly the same issue (that is, using PE2950 with SAS 6/ir). The drives I'm using, is Seagate Barracuda 2TB (ST2000DM001).

I managed to get a drive online in bay 2, however, this only worked if I pulled out the other drives in bay0-1+3-5.

OP; did you ever come to a conclusion? Did you get it to work with other drives?
 
Call Dell for service if it is still in warranty. If I remember correctly, they had problems with some bad backplane power cables (I believe the part was WG805) which overheated when fully loaded with higher-draw drives (drives which were NOT provided by dell as OEM)
 
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