Aurora R8, add 4TB 3.5" HDD?

Thank you very much for your prompt reply. Just one follow up question, regarding my own SATA cable. Might I be able to use the SATA cables that I already have in my current gaming PC?

Yea, the cables are the same, it should connect and work fine.  If the pc case doesnt physically close all the way you might need to buy a right angle sata cable, since the hard drive is right up against the case there are space limitations.

Okay, sir, thank you very much!

According to the "Aurora R8 Setup and Specifications" document you have a capacity limitation of "Up to 1 TB" on the 3.5 Inch Hard Drive.

Table 13. Storage specifications

Two 2.5-inch hard drives
SATA AHCI 6 Gbps
Up to 2 TB

One 3.5-inch hard drive
SATA AHCI 6 Gbps
Up to 1 TB

Two M.2 2242/2260/2280 solid-state drives•
SATA AHCI 6 Gbps•
PCIe NVMe up to 32 Gbps
Up to 1 TB

So if you have already purchased the 4 TB drive, and installed it and it worked - please share that info back here.

I am trying to add a 6TB HGST 7200RPM 3.5" HDD to my R8. It has the latest updates from Dell and MS for Windows 10 64bit.

The drive spins-up on power-on (I can feel it with my finger), but by the time Windows 10 loads and I log in, the drive has spun-down (again, I feel it spinning-down).

With the system fully booted and logged in, I can remove the 6TB drive's SATA data cable and SATA power cable, wait 10 sec, plug in the 6TB drive's SATA data cable and power cable and the drive spins up and shows in the Disk Manager as "Drive 0".

I used Disk Manager to add the 6TB partition and format it as an NTFS (5.5TB usable). It showed up in File Manager as drive D:\. It stayed listed and active in the File Manager... until I rebooted.

After reboot, its gone. It spins up, then spins down before I can finish logging in. And after I've logged in, the Device Manager only shows the Toshiba 1TB NVMe boot drive (no sign of the HGST 6TB drive) and it is not listed in the Disk Manager.

I am replacing a 2TB HGST 7200RPM HDD that has work perfectly since day-1 for the last 7 months. I just needed more space. The 2TB drive is obviously slower than the 1TB NVMe boot drive, but I'm using it as a backup target for my NAS box (robocopy).

It is like the 6TB drive is being treated as a removable disk or something.

@DellDSB  Your hard drive is too new for your PC!  Older SATA specs call for transfer of 3.3V over PINS 1, 2 & 3 on SATA.  Under current specs 1 and 2 are unused, and PIN 3 (PWDIS) is now used as an optional power disable/reset feature for the hard drive.   Most consumer drives don't use this so it's a non-issue (I think some WD drives and for example NAS drives where remote management is important are an exception).  And apparently your drive. You can safely cover or remove the 3.3v, or use a Molex to SATA cable to power the HDD if you have an aftermarket PSU.  Unfortunately most HDDs don't even use the 3.3V these days.  Except as a signal to disable/reset the drive.  

Here, the red line demonstrates what I'm saying.  PWDIS (optional power saving feature) = reset/disable hard drive if constant 3.3V signal over PIN3.   Older specs required 3.3V power over PIN3. 

@r72019 I thought you had it. But, it didn't last.

I placed a small strip of thin clear tape over pins 1, 2 & 3 on the drive's power connector and booted up.

Unlike before, the drive stayed spinning all through the log in and I could feel the head seeking and chattering throughout the log in until the Desktop finished loading.

I opened the File Manage to see that the 6TB drive was listed as drive D:\.

But, when I doubled-clicked on it, File Manager throws up an error message saying Drive is no longer available. And, it is not spinning anymore. And, it is not listed in the Device Manager.

The drawing you provided shows that pins 1, 2 & 3 are shorter (they don't go all the way to the edge in the drawing), but on the drive, only pins 1 & 2 are shorter - pin 3 runs all the way to the edge (I don't know if that makes a difference)

Another observation is that before I read your reply and applied the tape to pins 1, 2 & 3 on the drive, I went into the BIOS and the 6TB drive kept spinning and was listed as an 6TB HDD in the BIOS inventory of devices. I would have to assume that means that 3.3v alone on pin 3 would not be enough to stop it from spinning.

It seems likely that while the PWDIS signal on pin 3 could be part of the problem, it isn't effecting the drive with only the BIOS running or it might be coupled with something that Windows 10 is doing as device drivers are loading.

The other possibility is the tape is too thin and I need better tape.

@r72019  Following up with this 6TB HGST HDD disk issue.

This may be more of a Windows 10 issue than an R8 SATA controller or old v. new SATA spec issue.

Using thin tape on pins 1, 2 & 3 of the 6TB HGST HDD SATA drive may (or may not) be part of the solution of not seeing the drive in Device Manager / Disk Manager or File Explorer (drive D) on start-up or reboot. But, there seems to something else besides simply the tape. And I don't know where else to look.

Keep in mind that I had a 2TB HGST HDD (same HGST model series, but smaller capacity) installed that was working fine as drive D for 7 months with no issues whatsoever.

I covered those pins on the 6TB HGST HDD drive's power plug and booted up Windows and logged in. The 6TB HGST was listed in File Explorer as drive D. I created a folder on drive D and then I opened PowerShell, changed to drive D and cd'ed into the newly created folder. Then started a robocopy /MIR from my NAS to this newly created folder on drive D.

Robocopy ran for 35 hours, copied 145,700 files and 1.3TB data, then finished with no errors, no skipped files and no warnings.

I happened to be sitting at the console when it finished. Within 2 minutes, drive D was gone. It is not listed in File Explorer, Disk Manager or Device Manager. But, the drive is still spinning. I can feel that the drive is still spinning with my finger and feel the periodic "bump" as the head repositions. When I tried to restart the robocopy job, robocopy did not start and failed instantly.

I've Google'd for anything that looks like it would apply. Most results are related to Windows 10 updates causing existing D or E drives to disappear or drive failures. But nothing that matches this symptom. All the "solutions" I looked at assume the drive is still visible in the Device Manager or Disk Manager.

Any suggestions?

Perhaps it could be a hardware issue.  Some suggestions: 

1. Try a different SATA data cable 

2.  Try plugging the data cable into a different header in the motherboard (there should be 4 total, if you don't have a spare you can swap it with the optical drive's connection.).

3.  Try also using a different power cable to connect the drive (there are spares in the metal box enclosure behind the PSU). 

4.  Try reseating both ends of any cables which are not replaced/relocated (if you have the 460w psu it is non-modular on the PSU end).