Two drives missing all of a sudden (only one parity drive). I'm bummed.


Go to solution Solved by Frank1940,

Recommended Posts

I'm not sure if it's a coincidence or not, but I upgraded my router (which is physically near my Unraid server box), and shortly after, I had two disks go missing.  I figured maybe I jostled the server, so I shut it down, and checked the cables.  They seemed solidly connected.  Then I assumed it was the drive enclosure (it passes data and power through the enclosure) that both of the missing drives were in.  New enclosure has cables going directly to the drives.  Same two drives are missing.  So I bought a SATA card to try.  Same two drives missing.  Switching out cables and SATA ports shows that it's a problem with those two hard drives.

 

I thought I had the server set up to send me notices if there were SMART errors.  It certainly let me know when I was getting low on disk space.

What are my options now?  Seems odd that two drives would fail at the same time with no errors leading up to their failure.

This has certainly cemented my decision to add a second parity drive, but I'm hopeful that there's something I'm missing that is obvious to one of you.

 

Edited by datruedave
Removed diagnostics
Link to comment
22 hours ago, Frank1940 said:

How are you getting power to this external box?   I would be checking those connections and any PS involved.

It's an internal enclosure (fits in where 4 drive bays are in my case, and allows 5 drives to fit in the same space).  The old cage had a backplane that split the power for the drives and connected the data cables to hot swap bays, but I've replaced that with an enclosure that uses direct cabling.  So it's not the enclosure.

 

And I've swapped out cables (both data and power) and the cables work fine on the other drives.  The problem stays with the drives, which leads me to believe that it's not an issue with cables or the power supply.

Edited by datruedave
Link to comment
  • Solution

One thing to try.  There are a few WD drives that had an issue with the +3V voltage supply on an older STAT power cabling  that would force the drive into a reset state.  See here:

 

     https://www.instructables.com/How-to-Fix-the-33V-Pin-Issue-in-White-Label-Disks-/

 

If that is not the problem, I would try the drives in a USB housing connected to another computer to see if that can recognize them.   You could have two bad drives that both went bad at virtually the same time.  But that really goes counter to what I have seen in this forum.  At that point, I would be looking at those enclosures...

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
2 hours ago, Frank1940 said:

One thing to try.  There are a few WD drives that had an issue with the +3V voltage supply on an older STAT power cabling  that would force the drive into a reset state.  See here:

 

     https://www.instructables.com/How-to-Fix-the-33V-Pin-Issue-in-White-Label-Disks-/

 

If that is not the problem, I would try the drives in a USB housing connected to another computer to see if that can recognize them.   You could have two bad drives that both went bad at virtually the same time.  But that really goes counter to what I have seen in this forum.  At that point, I would be looking at those enclosures...

 

Huh.  I guess I'll try a molex to sata adapter.  Amazon will deliver that in a couple of days for under $5, so it's a cheap and easy thing to try.

Link to comment
On 6/2/2022 at 4:55 PM, Frank1940 said:

One thing to try.  There are a few WD drives that had an issue with the +3V voltage supply on an older STAT power cabling  that would force the drive into a reset state.  See here:

 

     https://www.instructables.com/How-to-Fix-the-33V-Pin-Issue-in-White-Label-Disks-/

 

If that is not the problem, I would try the drives in a USB housing connected to another computer to see if that can recognize them.   You could have two bad drives that both went bad at virtually the same time.  But that really goes counter to what I have seen in this forum.  At that point, I would be looking at those enclosures...

That was the problem.  Got a molex-sata power adapter and the drives are there now.  Thank you very much!

Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.