Are there any drivers, or even tips, for getting Western Digital DC HC650 20TB SATA Host-managed SMR drives working in an UnRaid system, 6.12.13 currently? 

 

Using a Dell R510, the system recognizes the drives just fine. If I just try to replace an existing drive in the array, it fails with transmit timeouts, 15 straight timeouts, and then puts the drive into an unused state. For fun I tried a preclear and that worked all the way through each step, so seemed to be a possibility. When putting them into use in the array, same timeouts.

 

Are these possible?

the proprietary hardware on Dell R510 uses a hba that has sas mutipathing. Unraid done't support sas mutiplathing...

Please make sure the hba at boot is set to JBOD "IT mode" to be sued with unraid software raid and not use the dells hardware raid hba.

smr drives are slower on unraid but not unusable.

Edited November 28, 20241 yr by bmartino1

your fighting your hba in dell hardware and may need to flash the firmware to use it on unraid:

https://www.dell.com/community/en/conversations/poweredge-hardware-general/cant-get-it-modepassthrough-to-work-r510/647f6a4ff4ccf8a8de76327b

 

 

 

Finding and flash the firmware can be tricky. if you can find it...

Edited November 28, 20241 yr by bmartino1

review other peoples post on forum for a potential solution:
 

 

you may need to go after a different hba or attempt flashing your current one to run IT mode.

6 hours ago, nlucier said:

Host-managed SMR drives

These won't work, they need OS support, only device-manged SMR drives will work.

Probably should have said that I have a fully working system on the unit using IT mode HBA, with 2 parity, 10 data drives. I am looking at swapping in these 20TB drives that I acquired as not being usable in WD 102 JBODs in data centers, if they could.

7 hours ago, nlucier said:

I am looking at swapping in these 20TB drives that I acquired

Like mentioned, they cannot be used with Unraid, and most other OSes.

Oh well. Was hoping that since several Linux versions can use them, it would be a driver that could be added. 

while i have not tested this specific device as one of my go to manufactures for enterprise type drive for there MTF.

I have yet to come across a disk that was not useable. It may be capabale if added to a contorer/adapter that the unraid linux kerneal supports...

 

https://www.westerndigital.com/products/internal-drives/data-center-drives/ultrastar-dc-hc560-hdd

 

Looking at the specs.
 

Interface

SAS

you would need to make sure you have a sas HBA. I have uses sas drive on Unraid in the past the cavot your fighitn here is while sas, they are SMR for unraid you realy want CMR drives.

esample adapter to convert sas to sata:
https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256806363127481.html

using a sata hba:

*get one with cables included...
https://a.co/d/0067cvz
 

as example in another post:

Per Jorge on other post unraid doesn't support sas mutiplathing... adn the defualt conecting for theses enterpirse drive uses sas mutipalthing...

 

While I do have a SAS capable HBA, and 6 SAS 10TB drives among my 12 installed in the array, these particular 20TB SMR drives are SATA (just confirmed by looking at the label and the connector).

trial and error try one smart test coenc as a single pool device.. if nope send it back...