U-NAS NSC-810A Hot Swap Bays not receiving power

[Litesung]

Hello everyone, I'm having an issue with my unit. I've sent a couple e-mails to U-NAS and have also called them but I haven't received any response yet.

System Specs:
Case: U-NAS NSC-810A
Motherboard: Supermicro X11SCH-LN4F
Drives: 8x 10tb WD 'White Label' WD100EMAZ
PSU: geeek custom AcBel 500W FSD-059

The issue I'm facing is that the Hot Swap Bays are not receiving power and powering my drives, so the drives aren't being detected in the BIOS. I've verified the drives are all in working condition - In order to test this I plugged them into the motherboard manually and powered them directly with the PSU. By doing this I also verified that each slot can detect the drives, so the issue is not the motherboard. In order to verify that the molex connectors on my PSU were providing power I plugged them into a molex powered fan hub and started the PSU to verify that the fans are powering on and the molex cable is sending power.

This isolates the issue to either the provided SATA and molex cables being faulty on the case itself. I'm unsure how to test the SATA cables, but I'm guessing there is a way to test if the molex plugs are both receiving power. Does anyone have any ideas on how to do this? Would I need a voltmeter? Unless U-NAS responds, my project is blocked by this issue.

 

[nthu9280]

See if you can ruleout "3.3v Power Disable"
feature as a contributing factor. Are the power connectors to the backplane are 15-pin SATA or 4-pin Molex?

 

[Litesung]

See if you can ruleout "3.3v Power Disable"
feature as a contributing factor. Are the power connectors to the backplane are 15-pin SATA or 4-pin Molex?

The hot swap bays are powered with two 4-pin molex. If the system can boot into the OS with the drives plugged in with a direct SATA cable and 15-pin SATA power from PSU (without blocking the 3.3v pin), does that also eliminate it as a contributing factor?

 

[IamSpartacus]

The hot swap bays are powered with two 4-pin molex. If the system can boot into the OS with the drives plugged in with a direct SATA cable and 15-pin SATA power from PSU (without blocking the 3.3v pin), does that also eliminate it as a contributing factor?

Do you get any HDD LED's for the hot swap bays when you power on the system with the drives connected to the backplane?

EDIT: And yes, the 3.3v pin issue can sometimes only affect backplanes and the drive will work fine without the mod if connected to certain PSU's.

WD Easystore 8TB Compendium : DataHoarder


I just installed 8 x 10TB White Labels into a U-NAS 810a and I had to do the pin mod on 5 of the 8 drives. All depends on which drives you get.

 

[Litesung]

I see, I'll apply the modifications on all the drives and see if they're detected in the hot swap bays. I'm seeing a light for the sun icon (power?) for each of the drives when plugged in. The other indicator is un-lit, is this the drive-activity light? (The icon looks like a cylidner).

 

[IamSpartacus]

I see, I'll apply the modifications on all the drives and see if they're detected in the hot swap bays. I'm seeing a light for the sun icon (power?) for each of the drives when plugged in. The other indicator is un-lit, is this the drive-activity light? (The icon looks like a cylidner).

Yes the cylinder is the activity light. Not surprised that's not lit up since the drives aren't being detected. I would apply the modification to one drive and test before you go ahead and do it to all if that's not the issue.

 

[Litesung]

I've resolved the issue - It was indeed the 3.3v pin. So for anyone who comes across this issue via search, you can pry off the third pin metal trace. This allowed the U-NAS NSC-810A to detect all the drives (applicable only to WD 'White Label' drives).

 

[IamSpartacus]

I've resolved the issue - It was indeed the 3.3v pin. So for anyone who comes across this issue via search, you can pry off the third pin metal trace. This allowed the U-NAS NSC-810A to detect all the drives (applicable only to WD 'White Label' drives).

Yup that's one option. I just covered the pin with tape because I want to keep my warranties in tact.