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74789
PowerEdge T320 SATA sync speed only 3GBPs
Hi, I have a week old T320 with H310 RAID controller shipped with 2x 1TB SATA hot swap drives (Constellation ES.3 - Dell part: 0T4XXN, Seagate ST100NM0033).
The max sync rate - as reported in the H310 BIOS and in the Lifecycle controller is 3Gbps. The H310 RAID card is a 6GBPs card that's been out for a few years and these SATA drives are 6Gbps (according to the Seagate spec sheet)
I spoke to Dell 'support' and they said they there was no speed specified in their documentation of the drive so they didn't know(!?).
Does Dell actually still ship 3GBPs drives - i.e. special degraded firmware?
They suggested I speak to sales to change the disks which I will - but for what? SAS would be a cost option for sure and if 'support' don't know the spec of their own parts what are sales going to do.
Any ideas?
powerpodge
87 Posts
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September 21st, 2015 00:00
For anyone interested I was correct - Dell hobble their SATA 6GBPs drives down to 3GBPS and have done since 2009. Apparently it was a deliberate policy as they had issues with some servers back then using SATA III specs - but its idiotic to keep this policy over 5 years later.
So no 12th generation server - e.g. T320 - ships with 6GBPs SATA drives despite the fact that the exact 'same' drive model purchased as say OEM Seagate ES.3 runs happily at 6GBPs. Dell simply artificially degrade the performance in their firmware.
With 13th gen servers there is now a *choice* of SATA speeds - but why?, why even still supply SATA II drives in a new server?? - at least I now know what the issue is.
T620 showing Dell disk running at 3GBPs:
speedstep
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47K Posts
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April 25th, 2016 06:00
You dont get SSD transfer speed from mechanical hard drives.
You won't be seeing anyone with Crystal Disk Mark and ST100NM0033 showing 350, 450, 500Mbps transfer speeds.
Not even SATA 2 300Mbps.
6Gbps is theoretical speed not guaranteed speed.
They are only 7200 RPM not 10,000 or 15,000 RPM
Best-in-class energy efficiency not SPEED.
SATA 3 speeds are only achieved with SSD Drives.
This is why WINDOZE Experience Index is locked at 5.9 until you buy SSD drives.
SATA 1 (1.5g/s), SATA 2 (3g/s) and SATA 3 (6g/s) is the interface speed - how fast data can be transferred between the computer and hard drive. These are maximum speeds. A drive can be SATA 2 and not reach it's full speed.
5400, 7200, and 10,000 are the drive's platter speeds in RPM's. The faster the disk spins, the faster it can read/write to the disk.
Most mechanical drives today should be SATA 2 since most don't come close to theSATA2 3g/s maximum limit. SATA 3 is best used for SSD's (solid state drives). 7200rpm is pretty much standard on today's Green desktop drives. 5400rpm is mostly used in laptop drives which is the SLOWEST speed.
Anonymous
5 Practitioner
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274.2K Posts
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September 9th, 2015 13:00
Hello.
I was not able to find any information on the part number T4XXN. There is a part number which is very close, T4XNN for 1TB SATA hard drive that matches your specification and supports 6Gbps.
H310 is a 6Gbps card and T4XNN is 6Gbps drive. The chipset controller (S110) is a 3Gbps controller. Ensure that the drives are connected to the H310 and not the S110 controller and that its firmware and the hard drives' firmware is up to date.
powerpodge
87 Posts
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September 9th, 2015 16:00
Hi,
Thanks, yes drives are 0T4XNN - my typo. As per original post the RAID BIOS (i.e the disks are connected to the H310) states that they have a maximum transfer rate of 3GBPs so something odd is happening.
The server is straight out of the factory and the controller and drives are established components so ideas of firmware updates etc. don't really make sense to make the server run as it should.
Ill see what Dell say when I try them again.
powerpodge
87 Posts
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September 11th, 2015 09:00
Dell still say they arent sure other than their lab drives also showing 3GBPs. Looking at a T620 it appears that all Dell SATA drives are deliberatley limited to run at 3GBPs rather than the 6GBPs that they do as the 'same' OEM parts (Seagate Constellation ES.3 in this case).
Im surprised this has never been mentioned before and that there is no written drive spec (P/N 0T4XNN). All passing refereneces I can find state that this is a 6GBPs drive but I cant find any actual Dell data sheet. My guess is that its 'special' dell firmware that is used so these drives can be used on much older systems that have issues with SATA 3 not syncing down to SATA 2 speeds - I seem to remember seeing this with some drives before years ago.
Also it seems Dell deliberately want to hide this info - an equivalent Dell SAS drive states 'SAS 6GBPs' clearly on the label - the SATA drives on a near identical label simply say 'SATA' - no speed or version mentioned.
theflash1932
7 Technologist
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September 21st, 2015 15:00
T630 with H730, running Dell 6Gbps drives, at 6Gbps:
You think this is this a SAS/SATA thing or a Dell thing? Or maybe a limitation overcome with the H730 controller?
Ferdasyn
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April 25th, 2016 09:00
We have seen several different drives recently which are 12GB, but are limited to 6Gbps due to Dell firmware.
powerpodge
87 Posts
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May 2nd, 2016 18:00
Quote: "You think this is this a SAS/SATA thing or a Dell thing? Or maybe a limitation overcome with the H730 controller?"
You image was of SAS drives - they do run at 6Gbps - this issue is for SATA drives.
As mentioned Dell confirmed that all Dell SATA drives shipped with 12th generation servers (hard drive, hybrid or SSD) ship as 3Gbps firmware limited.
Re. theoretical speeds - even SATA3 drives have cache transfer speeds of 6Gbps. An array of say 5 disks has a significant 0.6GB of cache (typically 128Mb per drive) - so it does make sense to have them running at full SATA3 speeds.
As below all the Dell T320 SATA options (inc. SSDs) are limited to 3Gbps:
sentania89
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June 18th, 2017 17:00
Any idea if dell has subsequently changed this in firmware updates?
Can you cross flash retail firmware?