DEAD: HGST SSD1600MM - HUSMM1640ASS201 - 400GB US $47.95 OBO

Notice: Page may contain affiliate links for which we may earn a small commission through services like Amazon Affiliates or Skimlinks.

awedio

Active Member
Feb 24, 2012
776
225
43
So, has anyone managed to get those SUN-branded HUSMM1640s to work? I've got 4 and not a single one is recognized in my usual Supermicro X9 board with 2308 IT-flashed controller. I don't buy disks often so I might be missing something here. As far as I remember, even disks formatted to 520/528B would still be recognized by the controller - they just wouldn't show up in most operating systems (until they're formatted to 512B). But mine are not even detected by the controller, and sg_scan -i in CentOS doesn't show any of them either. :( It's quite unlikely that I'd get 4 out 4 DOA, so it's probably some incompatibility issue?
Have you tried the drives behind a SAS expander?
 
  • Like
Reactions: dontwanna

Ibuytoomuchgadgets

New Member
Jun 11, 2019
4
1
3
So, has anyone managed to get those SUN-branded HUSMM1640s to work? I've got 4 and not a single one is recognized in my usual Supermicro X9 board with 2308 IT-flashed controller. I don't buy disks often so I might be missing something here. As far as I remember, even disks formatted to 520/528B would still be recognized by the controller - they just wouldn't show up in most operating systems (until they're formatted to 512B). But mine are not even detected by the controller, and sg_scan -i in CentOS doesn't show any of them either. :( It's quite unlikely that I'd get 4 out 4 DOA, so it's probably some incompatibility issue?
Bought five (5) units and tested them on an LSI 9211-8i. Drives recognized during POST and showed up in the OS without needing to do anything special.
 
  • Like
Reactions: dontwanna

dontwanna

Member
Dec 22, 2016
90
20
8
Have you tried the drives behind a SAS expander?
No, I'm just connecting them directly to the controllers. Tried both 2308 and 3008 already, with different cables.
Bought five (5) units and tested them on an LSI 9211-8i. Drives recognized during POST and showed up in the OS without needing to do anything special.
Thanks. I wonder what's wrong with mine then. Were all packed fine and no physical damage, all shipped in anti-static bags. Hard to believe they're all just dead, must be something on my end.

By the way, does anyone know what's the small window on the front of each disk, with 2 pins inside? What are those for?
 

awedio

Active Member
Feb 24, 2012
776
225
43
In my case, connecting the drives to a 9300-4 or 8i didn't work.
Putting them behind an expander solved my problem.
 
  • Like
Reactions: dontwanna

dontwanna

Member
Dec 22, 2016
90
20
8
In my case, connecting the drives to a 9300-4 or 8i didn't work.
Putting them behind an expander solved my problem.
Hmm, thanks. I was planning to use those without expanders though, I don't even have any, never had the need for those in my builds. I wonder why these disks behave like this? I'm pretty sure I've had a few Oracle-branded HUSMM1680s last year, and didn't have any problems with connecting them directly to LSI 2308- and 3008-based controllers. What kind of expander are you using exactly? I've tried searching for these on ebay, but only finding stuff from China, and almost nothing US-based. What are the most popular models out there to try?
 

h0schi

Member
Oct 24, 2020
43
24
8
Germany
Does anybody change / fix the drive-speed of a husmm1640ass201 form SAS2 (6 gbit/s) to SAS3 (12 gbit/s) with niagara ?
I got problem with saving the needed values to the disk.


Is there alternative to niagara ?
 
  • Like
Reactions: Samir

jcl333

Active Member
May 28, 2011
253
74
28
Does anybody change / fix the drive-speed of a husmm1640ass201 form SAS2 (6 gbit/s) to SAS3 (12 gbit/s) with niagara ?
I got problem with saving the needed values to the disk.


Is there alternative to niagara ?
I pick SPTI on launch
pic1.png

After setting the 10's to 11's, press mode select to save. You will see if it worked in the command window.
pic2.png

That is how it works for me anyways, and I have done like 30 so far with no problems.

-JCL
 

h0schi

Member
Oct 24, 2020
43
24
8
Germany
Thanks for your reply and the details.

I tried it but i receive following error-message:

Unbenannt.PNG

Seems like that the firmware restrict this action (IBM branded), hm ?
Does anybody have a firmware for a HGST Ultrastar SSD1600MM (400GB / HUSMM1640ASS201) or a method to change the sas2- to sas3-speed ?
 
  • Like
Reactions: Samir

jcl333

Active Member
May 28, 2011
253
74
28
@jcl333 So you don't need the bin file or downloading code to the driver to change speeds?
Nope, you just need to be using an HBA or a RAID controller in JBOD/HBA/IT mode so that you have access to the drives. You will know you are there when Niagara enumerates the devices.

Also keep in mind, you need to make sure you have the right cabling to support 12Gig on the drive, including connecting them to power correctly if you are using breakout cabling. After you make the change, reboot and make sure they report 12Gig (I use the Broadcom/LSI management software to see this). I would also test a couple drives after changing them, run a speed benchmark, it should be easy to see that you are exceeding the speeds possible with 6Gig.

All that being said, this is my experience with my drives, which came out of an EMC SAN from work that they were decommissioning. I can't speak for other drives that might have different firmware or something. I am not an expert, it took me awhile to figure this out.

-JCL
 
  • Like
Reactions: Samir

awedio

Active Member
Feb 24, 2012
776
225
43
Nope, you just need to be using an HBA or a RAID controller in JBOD/HBA/IT mode so that you have access to the drives. You will know you are there when Niagara enumerates the devices.

Also keep in mind, you need to make sure you have the right cabling to support 12Gig on the drive, including connecting them to power correctly if you are using breakout cabling. After you make the change, reboot and make sure they report 12Gig (I use the Broadcom/LSI management software to see this). I would also test a couple drives after changing them, run a speed benchmark, it should be easy to see that you are exceeding the speeds possible with 6Gig.

All that being said, this is my experience with my drives, which came out of an EMC SAN from work that they were decommissioning. I can't speak for other drives that might have different firmware or something. I am not an expert, it took me awhile to figure this out.

-JCL
All good man, thx, it worked per your instructions!!
 
  • Like
Reactions: Samir

jcl333

Active Member
May 28, 2011
253
74
28
Thanks for your reply and the details.

I tried it but i receive following error-message:

View attachment 16177

Seems like that the firmware restrict this action (IBM branded), hm ?
Does anybody have a firmware for a HGST Ultrastar SSD1600MM (400GB / HUSMM1640ASS201) or a method to change the sas2- to sas3-speed ?
Hmm, yeah, if I had to guess, I would say you might have firmware restricting the speeds that are possible, or maybe your drive just doesn't support 12Gig from a hardware perspective.

If you are feeling brave, you can check "Allow "Read-Only" Fields To Be Edited" and try and change the Hardware Maximum Physical Link Rate, I believe this is the main one that needs to change for this to work.

But please, this is a dangerous tool that you should be really careful with, I am sure there are 50 ways you can brick your drives with it. If you fool around like that, do it on a drive you are prepared to brick. I did this, and so far where I have experimented it just didn't work, and I did not brick any drives. What would be worse would be changing the drive in a subtle way that still works, but causes data corruption that you don't notice until later, or greatly shortens it's lifespan, etc.

Aside from that, if you are getting these drives really cheap and they only work at 6Gig, the low-latency and high transaction rate of SSD's is almost more important than the raw transfer rate, they will still work really good.

-JCL
 
  • Like
Reactions: Samir and h0schi

jcl333

Active Member
May 28, 2011
253
74
28
@jcl333 What o/s is your Niagara installed on?
Are you on Niagara v4.3?
Yes, it is 4.3 and I am running it on Server 2019 Datacenter Edition
It did take awhile to locate a fully working copy of Niagara that didn't complain about licenses, and some older versions would not recognize these drives. I consider the fact that this worked for me to be as much attributed to luck as it is to me figuring it out. It took me months to finally get it all to work, including getting the right HBAs, cables, having the HBAs on the right firmware, etc.

There are a bunch of things you need to get right for this to work. Be patient, it is not easy, don't feel bad if you don't get it right away.

And, to be fair, even with 8x of these drives in RAID10, the only difference I see is in benchmarks, I don't have real-world applications where I notice any difference. I think it will be some corner cases where you will notice. I did it just to see if I could.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Samir

awedio

Active Member
Feb 24, 2012
776
225
43
Yes, it is 4.3 and I am running it on Server 2019 Datacenter Edition
It did take awhile to locate a fully working copy of Niagara that didn't complain about licenses, and some older versions would not recognize these drives. I consider the fact that this worked for me to be as much attributed to luck as it is to me figuring it out. It took me months to finally get it all to work, including getting the right HBAs, cables, having the HBAs on the right firmware, etc.

There are a bunch of things you need to get right for this to work. Be patient, it is not easy, don't feel bad if you don't get it right away.

And, to be fair, even with 8x of these drives in RAID10, the only difference I see is in benchmarks, I don't have real-world applications where I notice any difference. I think it will be some corner cases where you will notice. I did it just to see if I could.
Cool.
I'm running v4.3 on Win10.
Just finished 4 drives, got 38 more to "upgrade"
 

Attachments

  • Like
  • Wow
Reactions: Samir and itronin