15.3 TB SAS 12G SSD for 750 USD

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Scott Laird

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Aug 30, 2014
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*Generally* NetApp devices are formatted with 520-byte sectors, and they need to be reformatted to work on anything else. This is fairly straightforward; there's a pinned thread on one of the forums here that explains it. I'm not sure that I've ever tried this with an SSD, but I've done dozens of HDDs.
 

Almighty

Active Member
Oct 27, 2019
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Ahh okay I've done this on some drives that were formatted 512 and wanted them 4k, so should be same process - will just nuke the data (which is a good thing).
 
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LodeRunner

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Apr 27, 2019
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*Generally* NetApp devices are formatted with 520-byte sectors, and they need to be reformatted to work on anything else. This is fairly straightforward; there's a pinned thread on one of the forums here that explains it. I'm not sure that I've ever tried this with an SSD, but I've done dozens of HDDs.
I have 4 NetApp 7.68 TB SSDs that I reformatted from 520 to 512 using an HBA an they work fine.
 
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EasyRhino

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Aug 6, 2019
499
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I have no idea what I would do with this, but I feel like I should buy it.

I don't think I should spend the money for this, but I feel like I should buy it.

(I actually had a netapp samsung 1635a 960gb that failed on me after about 6 months, so that was a bummer)
 
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Samir

Post Liker and Deal Hunter Extraordinaire!
Jul 21, 2017
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I have no idea what I would do with this, but I feel like I should buy it.

I don't think I should spend the money for this, but I feel like I should buy it.

(I actually had a netapp samsung 1635a 960gb that failed on me after about 6 months, so that was a bummer)
It's The STH Effect™ (not actually trademarked, but looks cooler this way, lol) :) Making you want to buy what you don't need! :D

I'm even tempted by this one as it would be nice to have this type of storage as a backup to the hard drives we have of this size. Must resist, lol.
 
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Sacrilego

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Jun 23, 2016
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It's The STH Effect™ (not actually trademarked, but looks cooler this way, lol) :) Making you want to buy what you don't need! :D

I'm even tempted by this one as it would be nice to have this type of storage as a backup to the hard drives we have of this size. Must resist, lol.
LOL, tell me about it.
I bought a pair before the STH secondary effect of price adjustment took place. I just could not resist.
 
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Jaket

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Jan 4, 2017
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Waiting on seller reply about life left on the device before we snag up 4 of them if there are some left over.
Not really needed as we have 12+ 15.36TB NVME's in stock at the moment but do enjoy these large drives.

Note they will most likely require being formatted into 512 from 520 otherwise they will not work for most people. Was a pain when we first bought some in the past. These 15TB drives take a good chunk of time to format over around an hour or so I believe.

If there are 4x left tomorrow I'll snag them. So if someone is thinking of getting them save me some money.
 
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EasyRhino

Well-Known Member
Aug 6, 2019
499
370
63
Note they will most likely require being formatted into 512 from 520 otherwise they will not work for most people. Was a pain when we first bought some in the past. These 15TB drives take a good chunk of time to format over around an hour or so I believe.
well at least they format faster than HDDs!
 
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JJ27

Member
Oct 24, 2018
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Isn't this a good one $/TB ?

I was checking old posts about it and seems that it runs hot and needs serious airflow, but doesn't seem a bad deal at all.
 
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itronin

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Nov 24, 2018
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If you buy check the firmware.

My understanding (and research) says this drive was afflicted by the 32768 bug (yeah similar to the HPE bug). Netapp fixed the firmware (circa 2019-11) but if you have old firmware you'll need the bits and a mechanism to update. As a consumer of large cap SSD's I've watched this drive price fall from 1.2K to now sub 1K over the last year but my insecurity around getting the bits and updating (without a netapp handy) has kept me from buying them.
 
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redeamon

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Jun 10, 2018
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If you buy check the firmware.

My understanding (and research) says this drive was afflicted by the 32768 bug (yeah similar to the HPE bug). Netapp fixed the firmware (circa 2019-11) but if you have old firmware you'll need the bits and a mechanism to update. As a consumer of large cap SSD's I've watched this drive price fall from 1.2K to now sub 1K over the last year but my insecurity around getting the bits and updating (without a netapp handy) has kept me from buying them.
Yeah that's always the issue with old vendor drives. Can't update the firmware (unless you have the specific hardware the drive was designed to run on) and the lack of documentation on the drive/firmware makes it a scary gamble in the long run. I have a few friends who have been burned from eBay vendor drives- we're talking $5k+ losses not to mention the hassle of the data loss & downtime. Modern vendor drives is fine though- anything 2019+ is alright in my book, but I would not go older unless you know what you're doing.
 
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redeamon

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Jun 10, 2018
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X670_S163315TATE.NA03.LOD 2019-06-20 09:01 4.0M
X670_S164315TATE.NA53.LOD 2019-06-20 09:03 1.5M
X670_TPM5V15TATE.NA52.LOD 2019-06-20 09:01 1.1M

S11633 = PM1633 (older drive)
S11643 = PM1643 (newer drive)

Not sure what vendor is TPM5V15TATE.

Also from: https://www.reddit.com/r/homelabsales/comments/khln5z
Just in case someone is interested in these.

These SSD's have the 32,768 hour bug, meaning they will brick after passing 32,768 hours of run time. If possible verify they have the updated 2019-11 firmware from netapp or newer. They require that firmware, or else they will brick.

The A700 chassis also has a near bricking bug, the chassis will report low current for the NVME battery and disable the WAFL write cache. There is a firmware fix, but some units were not fixable by this patch and had to be replaced under contract.

The firmware fixes for both issues are locked behind the netapp paywall.

As for possible workarounds on the SSD bug, you could try flashing the Dell or HPE firmware, but who knows if this will work. It may very well brick the drive.

I'm not trying to knock the seller or anything, these could be modern firmware with the issues fixed. These are things you should just know before dropping this much cash on gear without that information being offered up front.
The above firmware should be good then if you get an older version. Let me know how it goes!
 
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