[Guide] Low level formatting SAS drives

I ran into the issue that my SAS drive was formatted in emulated 512 bytes sector size and i low level formatted it into 4096 sector size. Since analyzing another problem with my SAS drive which took me several hours of headache (two new HBA cards and SAS drives) i formatted my drive to the specific native sector size. Here is my summary for anyone running into the same issue.

Sources / inspiration:

[Guide] Changing block size on SAS and SCSI drives

How to reformat drive sector size | 520b 524b 528b to 512b or 4k

@ArtofServer: thank you for your amazing content! 😀

Setting

Parity check running - no docker container possible -> Ubuntu Playground could not be used

Broadcom 9500-8i PCI HBA Card (newest firmware version: FW Version = 37.00.00.00)

Ultrastar DC HC560 SAS drive (WUH722020BL5204) (used drive from ebay)

Required additional software

Create a directory /boot/extra, navigate to to the official Slackware page https://slackware.pkgs.org/15.0/slackware-patches-x86_64/sg3_utils-1.47-x86_64-2_slack15.0.txz.html, navigate to the Download section and copy the link to the binary files, download, install it and verify installation. Hint: all files in /boot/extra will get automatically installed at first boot.

mkdir /boot/extra
cd /boot/extra
wget https://slackware.uk/slackware/slackware64-15.0/slackware64/l/sg3_utils-1.47-x86_64-1.txz
installpkg sg3_utils-1.47-x86_64-1.txz
whereis sg3_utils

Get drive information

Get the generic SCSI name of all devices and search for your specific drive, here drive WUH722020BL5204 has /dev/sg8.

lsscsi -g

[0:0:0:0]    disk    ATA      ST20000NM007D-3D SN03  /dev/sdb   /dev/sg1 
[1:0:0:0]    disk    ATA      ST20000NM007D-3D SN03  /dev/sdc   /dev/sg2 
[2:0:0:0]    disk    ATA      ST20000NM007D-3D SN01  /dev/sdd   /dev/sg3 
[3:0:0:0]    disk    ATA      ST20000NM007D-3D SN01  /dev/sde   /dev/sg4 
[4:0:0:0]    disk    ATA      ST20000NM007D-3D SN01  /dev/sdf   /dev/sg5 
[5:0:0:0]    disk    ATA      ST20000NM007D-3D SN01  /dev/sdg   /dev/sg6 
[7:0:0:0]    disk    ATA      WDC WD5000LPVT-0 1A01  /dev/sdh   /dev/sg7 
[8:0:0:0]    disk    Kingston DataTraveler 3.0 PMAP  /dev/sda   /dev/sg0 
[9:0:0:0]    disk    WDC      WUH722020BL5204  C5C0  /dev/sdi   /dev/sg8 
[9:0:1:0]    disk    HGST     HUH721212AL4200  DD08  /dev/sdj   /dev/sg9 
[9:0:2:0]    enclosu BROADCOM VirtualSES       03    -          /dev/sg10
[N:0:0:1]    disk    CT2000P310SSD8__1                          /dev/nvme0n1  -        
[N:1:0:1]    disk    CT1000P310SSD8__1                          /dev/nvme1n1  -

Validate if the generic name shows the expected info with the sg3_scan command.

sg_scan -i /dev/sgX

/dev/sg8: scsi9 channel=0 id=0 lun=0
    WDC       WUH722020BL5204   C5C0 [rmb=0 cmdq=1 pqual=0 pdev=0x0]

Check the current drive parameter in line Logical block length. Here it is 512 bytes and i want it to be 4096 bytes, according to the official datasheet Ultrastar DC HC560 page 2, Format: Sector size (bytes) 4Kn: 4096 (SAS Models row).

Ensure that you follow the manufacturer's recommendations for sector sizes for your hard drive!

sg_readcap /dev/sgX

READ CAPACITY (10) indicates device capacity too large
  now trying 16 byte cdb variant
Read Capacity results:
   Protection: prot_en=0, p_type=0, p_i_exponent=0
   Logical block provisioning: lbpme=0, lbprz=0
   Last LBA=39063650303 (0x9185fffff), Number of logical blocks=39063650304
   Logical block length=512 bytes
   Logical blocks per physical block exponent=3 [so physical block length=4096 bytes]
   Lowest aligned LBA=0
Hence:
   Device size: 20000588955648 bytes, 19074048.0 MiB, 20000.59 GB, 20.00 TB

Low level format

I highly recommend to create a tmux session in order to prevent loss of connection during this step, since formatting will take several hours. Replace /dev/sgX with your specific generic drive name. After creating a new tmux session, a green highlighted lines at the end of your concosle will apear, indicating that you are in the tmux session. Just enter the sg_format command with your specific sector sizes values, here 4096 bytes.

To detach tmux session: Ctrl+b then d

To reattach tmux session: tmux attach -t format_session

To list all tmux sessions: tmux ls

tmux new -s format_session
sg_format -v --format --size=4096 /dev/sgX

This process took almost 24h for a 20TB drive. After the sg_format command is finished validate the sector size with

sg_readcap /dev/sgX

READ CAPACITY (10) indicates device capacity too large
  now trying 16 byte cdb variant
Read Capacity results:
   Protection: prot_en=0, p_type=0, p_i_exponent=0
   Logical block provisioning: lbpme=0, lbprz=0
   Last LBA=4882956287 (0x1230bffff), Number of logical blocks=4882956288
   Logical block length=4096 bytes
   Logical blocks per physical block exponent=0
   Lowest aligned LBA=0
Hence:
   Device size: 20000588955648 bytes, 19074048.0 MiB, 20000.59 GB, 20.00 TB

Terminate the tmux session

tmux kill-session -t session_name

Hope this is helpful. Have a good one!