Zoli, do you have a HBA adapter ?? if you do you might want to check and see if the sector size are supported.
It sucks... If the card can not initialize the drive and i can not manage an array with the drive,then it's possible that I can see under linux with sg tools the drive? I asked only that I haven't got too much time now so if it is not possible then I rather find a hba card on ebay and not wasting time with this adapters....You need a non raid HBA SAS adapter like LSI9211 or its other twin brother and sisters
I am not sure if raid if you can reformat or check the sector size using raid adapter.
You need a non raid HBA SAS adapter like LSI9211 or its other twin brother and sisters
I am not sure if raid if you can reformat or check the sector size using raid adapter.
I would say give it a try and see if you can first identify that the drive do have an offset sector size.
If so then I would try re-formating with sg3_utils with raid controller attached.
However this will be a complete untested process, do it at your own risk. I've done this multiple time with LSI9211 card successfully (both spinners and SSD).
I would say give it a try and see if you can first identify that the drive do have an offset sector size.
If so then I would try re-formating with sg3_utils with raid controller attached.
However this will be a complete untested process, do it at your own risk. I've done this multiple time with LSI9211 card successfully (both spinners and SSD).
I've made some benchmark under linux and the performance is the same as my other non-HP Hitachi HUSSL4040ASS drives.... So it's true, the performance on par with normal drivesFor those of you who have purchased OEM rebranded HDD or SSD from major storage vendor such as NetApp, EMC, or even HP, you might find out that the drive that you've purchased will not initialized in windows. The main reason is that the drive come formatted from the factory with a non standard sector size of 520B or 528B, and windows refused to initialized drive other than the normal 512B or 4Kb. I read online the reason that these drive are formatted that way is due to some proprietary software that these vendor uses needs the additional sector size for some fancy parity stuff.
Anyway, you probably think that you are SOL after trying every possible means to use the drive.
Luckily there is a way to change the drive sector back to 512B. It require that you install centOS linux and follow the instruction below
Look in /var/log/messages after reboot, and you will see useful information:
Mar 9 08:08:54 vhc-carthage kernel: sd 6:0:7:0: [sdh] Attached SCSI disk
Mar 9 08:08:57 vhc-carthage kernel: ...ready
Mar 9 08:08:57 vhc-carthage kernel: sd 6:0:8:0: [sdi] Unsupported sector size 520.
Mar 9 08:08:57 vhc-carthage kernel: sd 6:0:8:0: [sdi] 0 512-byte logical blocks: (0 B/0 B)
Mar 9 08:08:57 vhc-carthage kernel: sd 6:0:8:0: [sdi] 520-byte physical blocks
Mar 9 08:08:57 vhc-carthage kernel: sd 6:0:8:0: [sdi] Write Protect is off
Mar 9 08:08:57 vhc-carthage kernel: sd 6:0:8:0: [sdi] Write cache: disabled, read cache: enabled, supports DPO and FUA
Mar 9 08:08:57 vhc-carthage kernel: sd 6:0:8:0: [sdi] Unsupported sector size 520.
Mar 9 08:08:57 vhc-carthage kernel: sd 6:0:8:0: [sdi] Attached SCSI disk
# yum install sg3_utils
# sg_scan -i
/dev/sg8: scsi6 channel=0 id=7 lun=0
NETAPP X287_S15K5288A15 NA00 [rmb=0 cmdq=1 pqual=0 pdev=0x0]
/dev/sg9: scsi6 channel=0 id=8 lun=0
NETAPP X287_S15K5288A15 NA00 [rmb=0 cmdq=1 pqual=0 pdev=0x0]
Now you should format the offending drive using the "sg_format" command.
[root@azev /]# sg_format --format --size=512 /dev/sg8
NETAPP X287_S15K5288A15 NA00 peripheral_type: disk [0x0]
Mode Sense (block descriptor) data, prior to changes:
Number of blocks=573653847 [0x22314357]
Block size=520 [0x208]
A FORMAT will commence in 10 seconds
ALL data on /dev/sg8 will be DESTROYED
Press control-C to abort
It is pretty simple, and after the format is completed, you should have no problem initializing the drive in Windows. However, per Patrick, some drive might require that you've bring the drive offline and then online before it would allow you to format it.
Some people argue that the custom firmware on the drive is set to work with sector size 520B or 528B, but during my benchmark, the drive performance was pretty much on par with the normal retail channel.
Hopefully you find this information useful next time you come across a drive with other than 512B sector size.
Today I made the same formatting to my second HP drive and that's working fine tooCongrats, glad the guide works for you
Same performance as the LSI card...My only problem is that I don't know how to refresh the firmware on my HGST drives. These drives with HP firmware is not so good in random writes, with a newer HGST firmware would be better , but I didn't find any software for the firmware upgrade... Any idea or someone made anytime firmware update on HGST HUSSL4040ASS drive or on anything similar drive?I would hold your judgement till you test SSD performance on the adaptec cards...
[root@centos7-01 Hitachi]# sg_readcap -l /dev/sda
Read Capacity results:
Protection: prot_en=0, p_type=0, p_i_exponent=0
Logical block provisioning: lbpme=0, lbprz=0
Last logical block address=3907029167 (0xe8e088af), Number of logical blocks=3907029168
Logical block length=512 bytes
Logical blocks per physical block exponent=0
Lowest aligned logical block address=0
Hence:
Device size: 2000398934016 bytes, 1907729.1 MiB, 2000.40 GB
root@centos7-01 Hitachi]# sg_format --format --fmtpinfo=0 -v /dev/sda
inquiry cdb: 12 00 00 00 24 00
ATA Hitachi HUA72302 A840 peripheral_type: disk [0x0]
PROTECT=0
mode sense (10) cdb: 5a 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 fc 00
mode sense (10): pass-through requested 252 bytes but got 28 bytes
Mode Sense (block descriptor) data, prior to changes:
Number of blocks=0 [0x0]
Block size=512 [0x200]
A FORMAT will commence in 10 seconds
ALL data on /dev/sda will be DESTROYED
Press control-C to abort
A FORMAT will commence in 5 seconds
ALL data on /dev/sda will be DESTROYED
Press control-C to abort
format cdb: 04 18 00 00 00 00
format unit: Fixed format, current; Sense key: Illegal Request
Additional sense: Invalid field in cdb
Format command, illegal parameter
FORMAT failed
I haven't seen that on a regular controller / drive combo, but I have seen it on RAID controllers with command passthru. Subsequent attempts seem to work fine.Does that occur if the format takes long and it does a test in the middle?
I checked SMART Info and it looks fine (after format)...