R930 RAID Card Only Detects Half of Drives

Can you confirm which figure on below link represent your system cabling. 

https://www.dell.com/support/manuals/en-us/poweredge-r930/r930om/removing-the-hard-drive-backplane?guid=guid-4f684a50-780d-4bf7-a09a-ea7a87a70832&lang=en-us 

Can you also check whether you have latest BIOS, iDRAC and PERC FW on the server?

Can you check current setting of Enclosure mode. You can check this on iDRAC Overview -> Storage -> Enclosures page by expanding backplane section.

Yes Shine, my cabling is exactly as appears in figure 5.

All firmware is up-to-date and the enclosures page says, "Enclosure Split Mode Capability ............. Not Capable."

Can you check and ensure are cables are connected properly? Is iDRAC or H730P configuration utility showing all 24 slots for the controller or only showing 12 slots only. Can you also confirm whether you have one SAS expander daughter card  or have two two SAS expander daughter card connected to the backplane.

https://www.dell.com/support/manuals/en-us/poweredge-r930/r930om/sas-expander-daughter-card?guid=guid-3ae90093-c7df-4a30-a45e-e3580c16fa34&lang=en-us 

Shine, all cables are connected exactly as pictured in the diagram you sent me. iDRAC and H730P configuration utility both show only 12 slots.

I have one SAS expander daughter card (model P6DGF) connected to the backplane and the A1 and B1 jumper cables are also connected to the backplane, which is supposed to give me all 24 drives according to the documentation.

I have tried replacing all of the hardware including the backplane, SAS expander daughter card, cables, and RAID card and it still only shows half of the drives. The jumper portion does not seem to bed working and I also am unable to view or change the enclosure mode (I suspect this may be the problem).

The only way I am able to get all 24 drive slots to display is if I use both daughter cards and connect A to one and B to the other one, which is not a supported configuration, thus causing a warning message to be displayed prior to OS boot.

Thanks for the details. Is iDRAC showing first 12 slots or last 12 slots. As you have only one SAS expander daughter card (model P6DGF)  connected to backplane all 24 drive slot  and connected drives should have been shown. We seen this kind of behavior when system have two SAS expander daughter card (model P6DGF) and cables connected to one only.

Hello Shine,

I hope you had a nice weekend.

I tried moving the daughter card to each side and it depends on the position I have the SAS expander daughter card in. For example, if I put it on the right side (when I'm facing the front of the server), it will only show 12-23 and if I put it on the left side, it will only show 0-11.

This is with only one model P6DGF installed.

Is the original configuration of this server came with one SAS expander daughter card with one PERC or two SAS expander daughter card with two PERC cards?

It originally came with one SAS expander and one PERC. I even tried changing out the PERC, SAS expander, cables, and backplane just to make sure it wasn't a hardware issue and it had exactly the same problem.

iDRAC also does not show what the current enclosure mode is (i.e. unified or split).

Hello,

I checked to make sure that all cables were connected properly and even changed out the cables, SAS expander, backplane, and RAID card. I still get the same issue where it only displays half of the drives.

I read in the docs that the backplane needs to be set to unified mode, but iDRAC won't let me view or change the enclosure settings.

I also saw that many other people have had the same problem and never were able to solve it.

I was wondering if there are any thoughts on this as all of the other forum posts seemed to eventually go unanswered like mine.

Perhaps Dell just didn't do so well in making the R930s and left out a feature or maybe I'm doing something wrong?

I guess just to make sure I am using the correct hardware, what backplane and SAS expander dc models should I be using to get all 24 drives to show on an H730P RAID card? Does anyone here know? ...and could there be anything else I am missing in this equation?

Hi

I have the same issue like yours. My R930 has 24x2.5 BB and the "Enclosure Split Mode Capability ............. Not Capable." Therefore, I am unable to setup split model and using two H730P raid cards.

Have you got this issue fixed at the end?

Thanks

Larry

2 years later, but I never got it properly fixed. I ended up just using two SAS expanders and setting the BIOS to ignore the "unsupported configuration." Not ideal, but it does work.