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March 6th, 2017 20:00
T130 drives being accessed every 3 to 5 seconds
I posted the text below in an older thread that has been idle for 3 to 4 months and I wasn't sure what kind of attention it would get so I started a new thread withe the same text along with an MP3 that contains a 3 minute sound capture of the noise I am hearing.
I have a T130 but mine has a PERC9 H330 in it with 4 Western Digital drives in it. My situation may be a little different but I have a strange noise issue and on top of that I didn't buy Dell drives because the ones that would fit my need were on back order to point I couldn't wait. The drives just kept getting delayed over and over so I bought straight from Western Digital based on information given to me stating the all I needed to buy was enterprise class drives. I had to upgrade from those drives maybe a month or so from when I got them to 4 tb drives. So I went to their site found the drives that I needed but they had a huge span of time before they would ship so back I went to WD to get prices and availability. The pricing was a little higher than I could afford so I looked at local computer superstore and they had them for a great price and I picked them up immediately.
So the actual issue is that the drives start being polled by something as soon as the server is powered on. The noise sounds like a normal read or write sound coming from an enterprise class drive but the noise occurs like a heartbeat ever 3 to 5 seconds. I didn't hear it when a friend who does server work set it up because the server was on a stand under a computer table. About a week or so ago I had to move three servers around including the T130 up on to a thick computer table and that is when I started hearing the noise so I opened a case. The server sits about three feet from my left ear.
I won't say much more than there appears to be an issue because they weren't purchased from them. I've search all over the internet looking for something that documents this issue but the only thing i found is in the T130 Owners Manual and that states that Enterprise class drives are required for raid use but nothing definitive in regard to a specific brand or model.
I posted up an MP3 file below that is a short 3 minute sound clip of the noise. It was made with my iPhone being held up next to the upper hard drive cage. Just after the louder polling occurs there is a lighter sound of the drives in the lower cage being polled.
I am at a loss about this. I have a friend that as of the technical stuff to the 3 servers we use and he is baffled.
The drives have been hammered with diagnostic testing with the raid controller set to raid mode and then with the raid controller in HBA mode and all tests passed. These tests were done using Dell's pr-OS diagnostics built into the server. I think they are in the Lifecycle controller but I am no techie. The drives have also been tested in Windows 2016 Server using Western Digital LifeGuard Diagnostics and with HDTune diagnostic software and they the pass tests. The only thing that visually kicks off a flag is in OpenManage and it's a yellow symbol with an exclamation point in the middle. If you hover that symbol you get a tip box stating that the warning is non-Critical error for non-Certified drives.
If anyone knows of any kind of document that has hard drive restrictions in it could you please post a link. I would really appreciate any help I can get especially if someone has seen this else where. I have a call into Western Digital as well to try and find out if this behavior is normal or not.
I hope the sound clip is in line with the rules here and that people can hear it. I had to compress the MP3 a lot so it would upload. The rotational noise in the clip is the front case fan. We bumped it up 15% to get the 4 tb drives a little more cooling. The chirping in the sound clip are birds outside my window, LOL!
[View:/cfs-file/__key/communityserver-discussions-components-files/956/3582.Dell-T130-PERC9-WD-Gold-HD-Noise-while-idle-comp.mp3:550:0]



theflash1932
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March 7th, 2017 13:00
Which Western Digital drives are you using? Red, Green, Blue, Purple ... all poor choices. Black is a better drive, but still not enterprise-class. The Gold/RE drives are enterprise-class, designed for RAID, but they are not certified for use on PERC controllers. Dell charges a lot for their certified drives, so buy them from suppliers/resellers. You don't pay much more for certified than non-certified, but you are guaranteed they will work.