Unsolved
This post is more than 5 years old
5 Posts
0
24742
Dell 2950 not recognizing drive in channel 3
I am in the middle of swapping out drives on the 2950 server with SAS . I have 2 500 GB drives in slot 0 and 1 and 4 x 1TB Seagate sata drives in 2,3,4,5. When I boot and enter the SAS configuration screen all drives but drive 3 show up. The slot used to work fine before I pulled the old drives out. Could it be a configuration issue on the raid card?
I have pulled and re-seated drive 3 several times but I don't even get a little power blip like I do when I re seat all the other drives. Hardware failure? I also swapped different drives into that slot to make sure it wasn't a dead drive.
Thank you
DELL-Daniel My
Moderator
Moderator
•
6.2K Posts
0
April 1st, 2015 17:00
Hello
You should troubleshoot a slot on the backplane like you would a cable, connector, or slot. There are no settings I'm aware of to disable a single slot on the backplane.
I would suggest reseating all cables to the backplane. It is also possible that another drive is disrupting communication. It is highly unlikely that another drive in the array would only cause one slot to not function, but if you want to be thorough then disconnect all drives and test a couple of drives in slot 3 by themselves.
If the issue persists then the backplane will likely need to be replaced. Since you have tested a drive that works fine in another slot then it is not likely an issue with the drive or installation into the carrier.
Thanks
seatec70
5 Posts
0
April 2nd, 2015 05:00
I already pulled all the cables and even shot them with some air to n avail. I take it the backplane some how took a blow and killed slot 3. I don't even want to know what a back plane like that will cost me.
seatec70
5 Posts
0
April 2nd, 2015 12:00
I moved the cables around but the issue remains the same. Drive 3 is not communicating. IM thinking it is the back plane now.
I had to get this server into production so ignored the drive 3 issues.
My question is. When I get a new back plane and replace the bad one. will I have to re create the raid?
DELL-Daniel My
Moderator
Moderator
•
6.2K Posts
0
April 2nd, 2015 12:00
No, replacing the backplane would be similar to replacing a cable. I would recommend that you update the backplane if it is not already up to date prior to connecting the drives. When you boot the controller without the drives present it is possible that they will show up as foreign when you reconnect them. You should be able to import the foreign configuration to bring the array back online.
Thanks
seatec70
5 Posts
0
April 3rd, 2015 06:00
Ok, ordered a new 6x back plane. Will post up if this did the trick or not. Surprisingly the back plane was only $45 on Amazon.
seatec70
5 Posts
0
April 14th, 2015 08:00
Current situation. I ordered a new SAS back plane and installed it. I installed the 6 1TB Seagate HD's. Again, couldn't see number 3 slot. Here is the kicker. On a whim, I installed an old Western Digital 500gb hard drive in slot 3 and now all drives are showing. ????. I went sifting through the settings and ll I can see is that there are differences in Link Status of the individual drives. All slots have are enabled and link speeds are 1.5Gps except for slot 2 and 4 are 3 Gbps. Both those slots have the same HD installed.
Scratching my head here. It must be some kind fo setting I am missing and why does slot 3 only recognize a 500 gb hard drive and not a new 1Tb Seagate hard drive.
DELL-Daniel My
Moderator
Moderator
•
6.2K Posts
0
April 18th, 2015 10:00
There is no setting.
3rd party drives that have not been validated for our servers can cause some very odd issues. 3rd party hard drives are one of the biggest call drivers for our warranty support teams. That is one of the reasons that we do not allow them in our storage appliances, and we have blocked their use in the past on our servers.
I don't know why it is only affecting slot 3. Any drive attached to the controller can disrupt communication. Troubleshooting hard drive issues and memory are difficult because errors on one device can be caused by another device. Your HDD issue may actually be with a drive in any slot. It could be a mixture of drives causing the problems.
Thanks