SAS drives not appearing.. help?

[Verzhus]

Okay going to say upfront when it comes to raid cards I am not very knowledgeable but I can usually fumble my way through. But I have been butting my head against something I cannot seem to resolve so I am hoping some pros here can. Okay short story time to help understand..

Had a small media server and it died friend gave me a ts440 and I had some 10k 600 GB sas drives laying around at the time which with some above mentioned fumbling I managed to clear their existing configurations in the boot menu ( LORD was that a pain cant even remember how I eventually did it ) and got them reconfigured to work as a new array on the installed LSI Megaraid 9240-8i.

Now as time has progressed due to some stability concerns I got ahold of some 15k 600GB sas drives from another server destined for scrap to replace them. But so far no matter what I do they do not seem to register as good or bad anywhere. Bay ports are all lit up.. tried putting one 10k back and it saw it just fine and
i know the drives are still functional.

I know there is an existing configuration on them but I cant seem to find any way to clear it since it doesn't seem to see the drives. And from what I can see the ts440 SHOULD be able to handle these so I am not sure what I am doing wrong or if it is just impossible for a reason I am missing.

Okay so maybe not so short... but if there is anyone out there who might have any suggestions I would truly appreciate it.

 

[CyklonDX]

are those visible in some way on the raid controller? and you just can't use them?

few potentialities:
1) foreign config / might need to clean the foreign config, before they are usable.
2) if they are visible but you cannot add them to raid with 10k disks, its likely they aren't exact same size. Some raid controllers expect same speed disks as well, on top of the same size. (often 15k rpm part, 600GB size is not exact same as 10k rpm part - this was often done to ensure you don't mix them -- if that is the case, cant' return etc, you can edit their size with either seatools or some other software like testdisk - maybe even downclock their rpm to 10k.)

 

[Verzhus]

are those visible in some way on the raid controller? and you just can't use them?

few potentialities:
1) foreign config / might need to clean the foreign config, before they are usable.
2) if they are visible but you cannot add them to raid with 10k disks, its likely they aren't exact same size. Some raid controllers expect same speed disks as well, on top of the same size. (often 15k rpm part, 600GB size is not exact same as 10k rpm part - this was often done to ensure you don't mix them -- if that is the case, cant' return etc, you can edit their size with either seatools or some other software like testdisk - maybe even downclock their rpm to 10k.)

Sorry from your response I realize I may not have been clear on a couple things that is my fault so let me try to answer..

As for the first question no they do not currently appear on the raid controller at all. Now as for the possibilities...

1. This is possible.. last time I recall going into the configuration wizard in the boot ui ( I believe.. ) I had difficulty seeing the 10k drives until I ended up going through some sort of 'wipe/reset' process for each of the 10k drives when I originally put them in only then were they listed as 'good'.. however I am not seeing anything like that ( I do see the config wizard but no reset drive options ) now or I am in the completely wrong place and I can't seem to figure out if I have just forgotten or this is a hardware issue. On this note is there a better way to wipe drives with a foreign config that I am not aware of? ( keeping in mind the server they came from is toast )

2. As for that question no as mentioned above none of them are visible and I am not trying to combine the 10k and 15k drives.. there were 8x10k drives previously and I have pulled all of them and put in 8x15k ones trying to build a whole new array. I did however during my testing pull one of the 15k out and put in a 10k just to ensure the slot was working. And the 10k appeared without issue.. yet still the other 7x15k drives do not appear to be detecting.

Hopefully that provides a little more clarity.. and thank you for your response.

 

[CyklonDX]

then there are 2 other options

1) clear foreign config
2) your backplane doesn't support those disks

 

[RAIDER]

Are these drives 6G oder 12G SAS? 12G is not supported by your controller and maybe not even by your backplane.

 

[Verzhus]

First off thank you everyone who has responded trying to help me muddle my way through this.. now for responses..

then there are 2 other options

1) clear foreign config
2) your backplane doesn't support those disks

I am wondering about both of those myself but here is my issues..

1) I actually would like to attempt it but as much as it hurts me to say I don't know 'how' to because as mentioned above having those drives plugged in gives me no responses from the controller. Even when I plugged the 10k back in it immediately came up with a question if I wanted to import the config but these 15's are not being as co-operative. And as mentioned above I remember something similar to this with the 10k's when I originally put them in and I remember struggling with it and now this doesn't even seem to show the way I 'remember' doing it before. Is there any way to force removal of a foreign config from drives to find out?

2) Also possible but so far I have been using this as a reference ( https://psref.lenovo.com/syspool/Sys/PDF/ThinkServer/ThinkServer_TS440/ThinkServer_TS440_Spec.PDF ) and it would seem to indicate that it should support them correct?

Are these drives 6G oder 12G SAS? 12G is not supported by your controller and maybe not even by your backplane.

That was a darn good question so I checked the one I swapped out for the 10k and it is a Dell 1MJ200-150 drive that online seems to list both a 6Gbps and 12Gbps model but stamped right on the drive is 'SAS 6GBPS 600GB RPM 15K'. So I believe I should be good.. probably haha.


I am guessing what I need to really figure out is HOW I figure out if this is simply a case of needing to clear a foreign config ( and if so how when that 9240-8i claims to see nothing ) or if it is in fact a backplane issue. If anyone has any idea how I might go about doing that I would be truly grateful.

 

[i386]

Is it popssible that the "not working" hdds have a nonstandard sector size (like 520 or 528b)?
Can you get a hba and test them there?

maybe not even by your backplane

(usually) incompatible sata backplanes have a piece of plastic between the data and the power pins to prevent the insertion of sas devices.
As per specification sas3 is backwards compatible and should work with 6gbit/s

 

[Verzhus]

Is it popssible that the "not working" hdds have a nonstandard sector size (like 520 or 528b)?
Can you get a hba and test them there?

(usually) incompatible sata backplanes have a piece of plastic between the data and the power pins to prevent the insertion of sas devices.
As per specification sas3 is backwards compatible and should work with 6gbit/s

Hmm not impossible but I would say unlikely? the server they came from was an older 2012 R2 and the device had been fine as a file/print server for a small business it was just retired due to the storage capacity becoming too small for their needs. Then the drives got pulled and put up on a shelf to be destroyed but I found them and figured since the 10k's seem to be starting to have issues this might make for a good replacement / minor upgrade.

As for the incompatible backplane sounds like you guys know more then me haha but for what it is worth the interface on the 10k and 15k are identical and as mentioned before the bay ports are lighting up so it definitely knows something is there and plugged in.. and the TS440 seems to support up to 600GB 15k 2.5" drives if that pdf I linked above is accurate. And unfortunately no I do not have immediate access to an HBA.. I have been trying to look up how to try and clear these drives but doesn't seem like anyone wants to make that very easy. XD

 

[CyklonDX]

there should be windows manager for lsi megariad



You could try using it / show us whats up; it should show you if it detects them in first place.