Hi everyone,

I have an LSI 9300 8i with two SAS ports plugged into my PCIE port. I'm using this cable:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08C2PXGJL?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title

I plugged the cable into 4 drives and one of them would not recognize in unraid. I tried swapping one of the functinoing cables and the one that wasn't working, and the one that was previously missing appeared and the one that I swapped disappeared. Ultimately, I used a sata cable straight to the motherboard for the last drive as a stopgap.

I initiated a return on amazon, but I wanted to know from the experts, how common/likely is it that a single sata plug on my 4x sata splitter is broken while the other 3 work? It seems odd to me.

Edited January 29Jan 29 by ratmanjones

If the issue follows the cable, that is likely the problem.

Those cables are tender. I have had instances of being able to bend them certain ways to get them to work in a pinch. It sounds like you have a good temporary solution in place and are able to return/replace so stick with what you are doing.

Did you read the reviews on this item? There were several where there were issues with cables not having four working connectors...

General Note about Amazon. They have become a store front for other companies. It often says shipped from Amazon but in small print sold by another company. (I buy a lot of stuff from Amazon but I am very careful these days. I looked carefully at the listing to determine what I am getting, what return policy is, and warranted by whom. For this type of stuff, I prefer E-bay and I buy the vendor and not the price. A vendor with a good reputation who has been around a few years usually means he has quality product and good customer service.)

Hi everyone.

I received the replacement cable today.

I installed it, and got a bizarre result.

3 drives spin up out of 4 with the new cable, same as the old cable. I go and check which one doesn't spin up and then go check the cable. The cables come labeled (P1 P2 P3 P4). The old cable problem child was P2. And the problem cable on the new one is also P2.

Now I'm starting to wonder if there is another issue, maybe either with my bios or with my SAS card? I am using 9800-8I LSI card, is it possible that it's faulty somehow making it unable to read one out of the 4 splitter SATA plugs?

Would love to hear any and all ideas, as I'm a noob.

EDIT:

As my LSI card is the 9800-8i with two SAS out ports, I swapped the two SAS cards and now all 4 drives appear. I should have tried this originally.

Since I have 6 drives, the cable I swapped to the port that hadn't shown all 4 previously only had P1 and P3 plugged in, and both of those drives also showed up.

I just tried plugging in P2 and P4 in place of P1 and P3, and lo and behold, once again P2 does not get recognized.

So to put it simply, my LSI card has two SAS out ports, and the leftside SAS out seems to not accept the P2 split of my 4 way SAS <> SATA split out.

Does this mean I need a new LSI card, or could it be a software issue?

Edited January 31Jan 31 by ratmanjones

Didn't you swap the HBA ports before and the problem followed the cable, or did I misunderstand?

Sorry, I probably didnt explain it well. Here's a diagram to make it simpler:

day 1 test:

day 2 test (today):

hope my crummy diagram helps explain what I mean. the problem is following "sata cable splitout plug 2" of the left port only, no matter which cable I use

If after swapping the cables, the issue remains with the wide port, it suggests the HBA port is the problem