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Dell PowerEdge T20 - second hard drive disappears
Hello, we bought Dell PowerEdge T20 for our organization without HDDs. We bought two hard drives Western Digital Black 2 TB 3,5" (WD2003FZEX-00SRLA0) separately and installed them.
After that I created mirror raid via software RAID tool (CTRL+I on boot), installed Windows 10 Pro and everything seems to be OK. But after installation of the OS I dettached one of the drives, start the OS and shut down. Then I attached the 2nd HDD and the system started rebuild. In 1-2 hours I noticed that the HDD lamp stop blinking (the rebuild was finish) restart the PC and noticed missing 2nd HDD. The same scenario happens 2-3 times later. Only when I shut down system and power on again the BIOS recognize the second HDD.
I'm wondering what occurs this? Bad SATA cable or incompatible disk drive?
kolev87
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April 23rd, 2017 05:00
The problem seems to be the bad SATA cables shipped with server by Dell. As I mentioned I replaced the cables with a new and the drives are working properly now.
The server is working for 3 days without problems.
I don't think that the problem could be Western Digital drives because they aren't compatible, it's not serious.
Thanks.
DELL-Josh Cr
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April 18th, 2017 15:00
Hi,
Why did you detach the second disk? It could be a cable issue, if the drives are not dell drives they may not work properly.
BotMan
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April 18th, 2017 18:00
The WD BLACK series are Desktop drives, and not Enterprise/Server drives. While I am not too scared of using generic Enterprise drives in a Dell Server, I wouldn't want to use a Desktop drive in one. (unless it was as a Single Drive Stripe).
I have seen to many issues where friends try to save a few dollars by installing Desktop type drives into a RAID and then don't understand why the drives drop out.
If you are interested, I would suggest reading up on the differences in this Intel document. http://download.intel.com/support/motherboards/server/sb/enterprise_class_versus_desktop_class_hard_drives_.pdf (Especially section 1.1.4.1 Bad Sector Recovery )
Good luck.
kolev87
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April 19th, 2017 08:00
After I replaced 2 SATA cables the 2nd HDD doesn't disappear anymore (it's strange because the server is brand new)
Are these server drives compatible with Т20:
Seagate ST2000NM0055
HGST HUS726020ALE614
if I decide to change the current config.
BotMan
101 Posts
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April 19th, 2017 11:00
Both seem to be good RAID capable drives. I cannot speak to T20 compatibility as I have not actually used a T20, nor have I used the Seagate drive listed above. (I have 4 of the HGST drives installed in a Lab R410 and they are running well with the H700 controller.)
Also, a lot of contributors here would suggest buying Dell branded drives and to update them with the latest firmware to ensure the best compatibility and functionality. YMMV, but I do agree this as it is the safe bet when running in a production environment.
Learn on the cheap, but don't gamble when it comes to your business.