R520 Embedded SATA not seeing drives

Hello,

First of apart from BIOS and iDRAC FW you can check also PERC H710P mini FW as well https://dell.to/30l7YKi

That cable is not certified by Dell. And that may root of the issue but I'm not sure because you are saying all drive bay is populated. There are two drive-bay options for R520 and you are using this one

8 x 3.5 - inch hot-plug drive option

- Drive controllers: PERC H310, PERC H710, PERC H710P

Do you try to Dell-certified SSDs? (but you already can see SSD on port E)

btw I found this SATA A-D cable for R520 which is part number is 8T6YN

Hope this helps and have a great one.

but honestly, the x8 backplane isn't split, so there would be no way to run the specified slots with the SSD to cable to the Onboard port. I found only supported in a specific chassis configuration for R620 but I can't found there is such a similar option for R520. If I have found it would be like this is not an upgradeable option, and must be configured this way prior to system shipping. So I think there is no chance for R520.

Hi, thanks for the reply.

I'm actually talking about connecting the drive to the Embedded SATA, not the PERC - I was just specifying that I had the PERC as part of my config.

I want to connect to #26 in the diagram in the manual:

I know that the cable isn't Dell-certified, but I would have hoped that a genuine Molex cable would be standards-compliant. I know the cable works on other systems.

I'm not putting the SSD's in the drive bays attached to the backplane, but rather, I'm putting them a custom caddy attached to the fan shroud. So I would need to connect to that Embedded SATA A-D connector. 

The SSD's are actually pulled from other R520 systems that were getting decommissioned, so they are Dell-certified.

Hi,

Thanks for the info. I understand your intention and logic but I have to say you are trying something unsupported thing with unsupported part. You'll understand that I do not have the opportunity to try something like this. Maybe if there are those who can operate it the way as you say, it would be nice if they inform their experiences here. Nevertheless, I must say that for the R520, this is unfortunately not supported. 

I get that it may be unsupported, hence me asking here instead of opening a direct line to Dell Support. 

I'm asking if anyone has been able to use the Embedded SATA controller, on Ports A-D, with SATA drives, and, if they did, how? Because I'm assuming that if the controller is there, and Ports A-D are labelled on the board and in the BIOS, they would be active in some form.

You make it work ? if so can u explain what u do . Also how do you power the ssd ? thanks 

No, I didn't make it work like that. I ended up replacing the CDROM drive with a 2.5" caddy and putting the SSD there. I made a custom power cable for it and it's connected to the embedded SATA port - Port E, I believe. This has been working fine for me since then, however, my boot drive isn't redudant, but that's ok, since I'm running Truenas and backing up the config nightly, so if the drive dies, loss would be minimal.