Secondhand Dell EMC drive not recognized by Perc controllers as expected

Question

Some time ago I purchased a secondhand Dell EMC 4TB SAS drive for my home server (PowerEdge T320), but did not pay attention the HDD was 4k native, which my Perc H310 does not support. The drive is manufactured in 2020 and I assume it might still be under warranty. Yet, whenever I try initiating a support case with Dell I do not see HDDs as a valid category for which I can submit a case. So, my problem is that none of the controllers I have tested the drive with so far - H310, H730, and some HP controller I don't really remember the model of - see it as a Dell drive. Instead, it is recognized as a Hitachi drive 1.8TB large. I guess the size limitation originates from the 4k native not supported by the controller (weird as H730 seems to support it). But I don't get how it comes to be recognized as Hitachi whereas the label tells me it's manufactured by Western Digital. And the label looks to be genuine, from what I see. I know HGST (Hitachi's drive division) was once active, but the brand was purchased by WD in 2012 and was phased out by 2018, long before my drive was produced. Can anyone suggest reasonable means of resurrecting the drive or how to get in touch with Dell Support to check on this? Any pointers are appreciated.

DELL-Charles R · Answer

Hello Rebellious,   Let's start with a look at the drive to see what we have.   Can you post image of full drive label?   The PERC9s were the first to support 4Kn(H730, H330, H830, etc)

Rebellious · Answer

Charles, Here it is

DELL-Erman O · Answer

Hi, Thanks for the photo. I can't view this disk in the spares system. This brings me to the possibility that this drive is a specialized drive for EMC devices. But let's have a look again when Charles is online so we don't miss anything.

DELL-Charles R · Answer

Hello Rebellious,

Erman is correct. This drive will not work in a PowerEdge Server. It is a specialized EMC drive for systems like Unity storage. There is likely nothing wrong with the drive it is just not supported in the server.

I did not see a 4TB drive for the T320. I did find a couple 2TB drives.

If you contact Sales in your region, they may have other options for you:

Part#: for 2.5" drives

TF52W - HD,2T,S3,5.4,512E,ST,M9T

XY986 - HD,2TB,512E12,7.2K,2.5,S-AV,EC

Rebellious · Answer

Charles,

Thanks for the confirmation. I was suspecting something like that, but appreciate a sort of an official statement.

I am already running 3x4TB drives in my server, so generally I have no issue with the storage, this one was thought to become an additional member of the array initially.

By the way, how would I know this drive I bought was from a storage system and not really compatible with PowerEdge?

DELL-Joey C · Answer

Hi @Rebellious,

Most of us will Google the part number. For this example, the drive you had is EMC PN 118000620. It will show a result of the drive is for which model unit. You can try googling Charle's reply on the Dell part number, usually on the physical drive it is shown as DPN# / Dell PN#.

PowerEdge Hardware General

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