Time to call in the Cavalry for help!

 

I have 2x18TB parity drives that I want to upgrade to 20TB.  I hung the drives on an external dock, precleared, formatted, etc.  Everything check good.

 

I only swap out parity drives 1 at a time.  So, put the first one in. As soon as it started errors started coming, then I received the drive disabled message and the dreaded red X by the drive name (Parity 1).

 

Tried with the 2nd new drive same thing.  Took both of them to my main computer and ran the WD Smart test tool.  Both checked out. Hmmmm?

 

Tried again, same problem.  Smart guy I am, I checked all connections internally, ensured my BIOS was up to date as well as Unraid.  Still same problem.

 

Next, I tried to swap slots thinking if its a bad cable or power connection, this will tell me.  Nope, same issue.

 

Put original 18TB drive back in.  No problems. Unraid accepted it and is rebuilding the Parity.

 

I should also add, these are "shucked" drives.  Never had an issue with shucked drives before either.  Thermal tape off the #3 pin and you're golden.  Not today!

 

The shucked drives are Elements 20TB...According to WD site, these are CMR drives.

 

I'm stumped.  Thanks in advance for the help.  In the 12 years I've been running UnRaid, I've never ran into a issue upgrading Parity Drives

tower-diagnostics-20240408-2257.zip

Edited April 9, 20242 yr by isrdude

I would try connecting one of the new drives to the onboard SATA controller instead, you can swap with another disk.

I'll try that....thanks.. :)

JorgeB....

 

Thanks! That tip worked.  Why wouldn't work on my SAS though once I went from an 18 TB to 20TB drive?

 

Next question, since it didn't work on the SAS connections to build a parity, will I have the same problem if I try to slot in 20TB data drives?

 

Thanks again for the helpful tip!

6 minutes ago, isrdude said:

Why wouldn't work on my SAS though once I went from an 18 TB to 20TB drive?

Could be a compatibility issue with the HBA and the disk.

 

7 minutes ago, isrdude said:

Next question, since it didn't work on the SAS connections to build a parity, will I have the same problem if I try to slot in 20TB data drives?

Possibly if they are the same model, different model may work fine.

Hmmmm...I may try different brand.  I was upgrading WD disk to another WD disk.  Just seems strange it would be a problem all of the sudden.  Well, I'll worry about that when the time comes.

 

Thanks again

Jorge.....you were correct again. I bought a Toshiba N300 Pro 20TB, put it into the same SAS slot I had trouble with......no problems at all.  Its rebuilding data just fine without any issues!!!

 

Thanks again