I have a server with a backplane for my drives. I purchased an LSI 9300-16i and changed my cables out to ones compatible with the LSI card. All my drives are visible, but not the ones that are 10tb (three in total). The activity light on those three drives just stays on and the LSI card cannot see them. The LSI card is up to date on 16.00.12.00 firmware and is in IT mode.
When I plug the portion of the backplane that the three 10tb drives are in back into my raid controller, it sees them. I have wiped the drives and marked them unconfigured GOOD in the raid controller, but the LSI card still wont see them when I switch that plug back to the LSI card.
Thoughts?
Here’s a barrage of questions that will help troubleshoot this:
- Can you be more specific about the hardware involved?
- What server and what backplane?
- What drives are we talking here, brand and model number?
- What cables did you swap to?
- You posted a screenshot of controller number 0, but that card should have two controllers, can you post the other one too?
- You say that the LSI card can’t see the three 10TB drives, how/where are you looking?
- How did you wipe the drives?
- What do you mean when you say “marked them unconfigured GOOD in the raid controller”???!!!?111 What RAID controller?
" * Can you be more specific about the hardware involved?"
The server was an Avamar ADS Gen4S M2400 Storage Node. I upgraded the CPU(s) to two 2620v0’s and 128gb of ecc ram.
" * What server and what backplane?"
Your guess is better than mine on the backplane, there is a lot of conflicting information on this chassis given the array of setups possible.
" * What drives are we talking here, brand and model number?"
I picked up 3 HGST HUH7201010AL4200’s at 10tb each (used). Since posting this, one of the 3 drives has shown up in truenas randomly.
" * What cables did you swap to?"
The LSI card uses MINI sas SFF-8087 connectors. Had to get 8087 to 8643 cables as the raid card/expander that came with the server uses 8643 to 8643.
" * You posted a screenshot of controller number 0, but that card should have two controllers, can you post the other one too?"
" * You say that the LSI card can’t see the three 10TB drives, how/where are you looking?"
Bios on boot, truenas shell, scrutiny, every conceivable way.
" * How did you wipe the drives?"
The only way I could, via the raid controller as it could see them but the LSI card couldn’t. As mentioned above, one of the drives has randomly decided to show up.
" * What do you mean when you say “marked them unconfigured GOOD in the raid controller”???!!!?111 What RAID controller?"
The server game with a raid controller and raid expander. If I remove the raid controller (on a mezzanine card), the server fans stay at 100% until the card is put back.
Still cannot for the life of me figure out how to get these 10tb drives visible. They work on the raid controller but the HBA cannot see them, though one did magically show up.
Is there something I can run on Truenas that would help?
This suggests something either with the drive(s), a bad cable (data or power) and/or the controller. I guess it could also be the specific HDD slots that have some kind of issue.
A 9300 with SFF8087 ports isn’t what I normally see. What brand is that or where did you get it?
If I understand you correctly, the drives are seen by the RAID card while in the same HDD slots. If that’s accurate I would say that it moves the focus more to the cabling used by the LSI card or the card itself.
Can you try moving the drives to different slots all-together to see if anything changes?
Amazon is where I picked it up. Amazon.com: LSI 9300-16i 16-Port 12Gb/s SAS Controller HBA Card with P16 IT Mode for ZFS TrueNAS unRAID : Electronics
I have tried other bays with the drives and same issue so it isn’t the cables or the backplane. I thought it could be the drives themselves but one just all of the sudden decided to show up.
I was going to try a direct connect as one of the cables I had to get had sata ports on it for the LSI controller so I could plug in my boot SSD but the three drives in question are SAS so that didnt work.
I am wondering if it is an issue with the how the raid controller cleared the drives, which is why only one decided to randomly show up.
