Norco hotswap controller causes drive death

[crazytony]

Apparently the hotswap electronics on the 4224 cannot handle more than .5A draw so some 3TB disks are causing the hotswap to fail which also causes the disk to fail.

 

http://wsyntax.com/cs/killer-norco-case/

[BLKMGK]

Hrm... Have any of US experienced this? I know that several of us including myself run this manufacture's stuff and I'm running this exact case. I'm also running it with multiple 3TB drives from Seagate. I note that they do not state what exact drives blew the backplanes but mention both WD and Seagate. No pics of the driver chips on the boards either - they were all pulled. The drives are also apparently decently enough below max spec for SATA that for them to be toasting things sounds pretty bad. I'm not sure if I've hot swapped mine or not but I know I've swapped multiple drives in and out with no issues. My system has undergone multiple power cycles too.

 

That said, I know I've seen mention of blown backplanes at least 2x here but no real mention of what has caused it etc. I guess it would be nice if the Norco cases came with a danged manual at least. We'd at least be able to settle the discussion as to why they have two Molex connectors per backplane...

[TheDragon]

That's a little concerning..! Would this potentially affect Norco SS-500 hot swap trays too?

 

Where can you find out how much power hard drives are expected to draw?

 

I've looked up the specs for the hard drive I'm using (WD30EFRX) http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/library/SpecSheet/ENG/2879-771442.pdf but it only mentions '12VDC (A, peak) 1.73' which seems a much higher figure than the ones they are mentioning in that article - am I looking at the wrong number or should I be sweating? 

 

As for the two molex connectors on the rear, aren't they for use with redundant power supplies?

[guyonphone]

I am totally freaking out about this, as I am running 8 3tb Seagate drives in a Norco 4224, for about 8 months. I don't have the money to just go out and buy a new case from another manufacturer. From what I gather regarding discussion of the issue here:

 

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4739160

 

ChuckMcM states that if you keep the mosfets cool, they will be able to handle the current without exploding. Luckily it's starting to become winter so it has been cooler. I purchased these heatsinks, and am going to be putting them on all the mosfets on my back planes:

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835708011

 

Does anyone who knows more about electronics than I, think this is a good idea?

 

I looked up the power draw on my Seagate Barracuda ST3000DM001

 

Power Specifications:

 

Some are:

+5V, 0.75A

+12V, 0.75A

 

Some are:

+5V, 0.75A

+12V, 0.43A

 

And some are:

+5V, 0.72A

+12V, 0.52A

 

Am I just lucky that I haven't experienced failure yet?

 

Also, is this only during spinup, first powering on the drive? Or could this happen during normal operation, at any time?

 

Thank You

[crazytony]

I would think that attaching sinks would void your warranty.

 

That being said, if you are not experiencing issues I would not do anything.  Just from reading the posts in the last couple of days it looks like the problem may be more complex than a single drive (some of their backplanes had 2 dead mosfets on 2 different ports).

 

I seriously considered getting a norco before I decided to go another way to get to 24.  I'm glad that I did though Norco's support sounds like it's competent (shipping out new backplanes like there's no tomorrow).

[lionelhutz]

With the claims on how the drives blow up as soon as power is applied or as soon as the drive is inserted I don't see how you should be concerned after operating for about 8 months with no issues.

 

I've yet to see 100's of different complaints and I'm fairly certain there are a number of people here with NORCO cases loaded with 3T drives not having any issues. I'm not sure what the problem is but I don't believe it's as simple as that web-site makes it out to be.

[BLKMGK]

Agree, not enough detail given and experience here and personally doesn't seem to support the sky falling. I suspect changes made by Norco for sure. For instance my fans are nothing like those described by others, it stands to reason that if they were swapping backplanes via RMA left and right that they would've made running changes there too...

[Johnm]

They don't go into enough detail to be completely credible...

 

While they talk about specific chipsets on a backplane...

 

they never state what drives..

they might be running seagate enterprise drives? or some sort of 6 platter old school beast..

 

They never state what version of the backplane it is...

Norco has had like 8 versions. some were worse then others.. one version only survived a couple of months due to poor workmanship and quality when they changed vendors. you can see it is an older one because the new ones are now yellow. not green.. also there has been very little complaints on those to my knowledge..

 

They never mention what power supplies they use...  could be un-clean crap PSUs..

 

wall voltage could be shoddy...

 

whats the ambient room temp and temp the drives and server are reaching? the could be running the drives at 60c or greater.. melting the entire system..

 

they miss some of the finer details...

 

also keep in mind. they are running the server with a big ZFS array.. that means all of the drives are constantly spinning as a single drive pulling mass power and generating tons of heat...

 

then again.. they could be spot on for the combo of what ever they have.. but, by not giving more details.. they are just creating a scare tactic and not truly usable information...

 

 

that said.. I am running 2 4224's fully loaded with a mix of hitachi and seagate 3TB drives.. never had a problem.. I did get a DOA backplane with one unit (this one was from the bad run of backplanes they knew about).. they gave me not 1 but 3 backplanes to replace it when I called them..

 

I am not a norco fanboy. I am just giving an honest opinion..

you get what you pay for.... yes, a supermicro chassis is better .. but for a home media center (not a university data center...) a Norco is perfectly fine..

 

I think that this "issue" people are reading here has been addressed already by Norco. That this is not a genuine issue these days...

 

and to my knowledge, no one on this forum has fried a drive on a norco backplane...

I do recall a person with an issue where his chips were soldered on crooked causing drives not to appear.. (that backplane was from the same bad run already mentioned)

 

it was asked about 5in3's...

I do not believe this would affect the 5in3 backplanes. the 5in3's are just sata passthroughs.  the 4224 backplanes are SAS, not SATA. They would not need the chips in question since the sata controller would handle this. I could be wrong though..

[BLKMGK]

Agree fully! Some here have had backplanes go but never take a drive and not something repeatable to my knowledge.

 

They don't show pics of the chips on the backplane although they do show the MOSFET jumpered. They ran a mix of WD and Seagate 3TB drives but no models. Good point about the ZFS pulling constant power.

 

All in all I don't doubt they had issues but I don't think it's a current issue - sure hope not!!

[micron98]

I have just had similar issue with my norco 4224.

in my case I have 8 fried drives.

 

I think this is related to type of backplane. I am using mini SAS backplane and would like to know whether any of users here use the same model and was able to use hot swap without any issues.

 

I suggest dont try hot swapping just to test it.

 

My guess at this time is that individual SAS / SATA connectors are not affected by this issue mainly :

1) seems there are happy hotswap users using 4224

2) as described somewhere, individual sas/sata connectors have power lines permanently connected

[BLKMGK]

I have a 4224 with a single SAS connector per backplane, cables from my m1015 don't breakout but go direct to a backplane apiece. I have a mixture of 3, 2, 1.5, and a single 1tb drive. All but two of my backplanes are filled and I do not have both power connectors populated on each backplane (yet). I will be making custom power cables to populate them soon.

 

My backplanes are green as I recall and have plastic thumbscrews. I have hot swapped at least half of my drives including several of the 3tb drives as recently as yesterday - it was a Seagate. My case was purchased less than a month ago from NewEgg...

[micron98]

so not all 4224 with mini sas are affected. my backplanes are all orange, not sure if this is the only difference.

 

No matter how close I look at them, I cannot find any blown smd chip on the backplane.

 

All I can see is that the PCB was not cleaned after soldering through hole components leaving fluxes everywhere.

 

not sure what is version number but it reads.

 

94V-0

RoHS

 

Fuhe BP-001MB

6 Gb/s SAS / SATA

/2011.11.20

2011-11-21

 

one thing I didnt mention when I burned drives is blue led ( power ) is on when drive is connected. Somehow backplane survives and just fries drives connected to it

[bcann]

I experienced this exact same issue with a new norco 4224, although one backplane seemed to suffer damage, the other 2 didn't. I had 8 drives killed. I was using a seasonic 750W 62A (12V) power supply, and like i said only had a measly 8 hdd's plugged in.

 

I've recieved a RMA from the local supplier, but unfortunately 4 of the drives i bought were not through them, so they refuse to replace them, which irritates me as they were SAS drives which weren't cheap. for me i just wanted a mass storage case with capacity so i could play around with Hyper V and have a lot of storage.

 

Micron98 yours sounds a lot like my case, i'll have to wait till i get home to check the particulars of the backplane, but it sounds a lot like you. Looking at the pic, it looks like component B5 has definitely crapped itself, but i could observe no other damage on the backplane.

 

But as soon as power on, all the lovely magic blue smoke came out of the drives.

[BLKMGK]

Will these backplanes take both SAS and SATA drives?

[bcann]

Will these backplanes take both SAS and SATA drives?

 

Yes there designed for both.

[BLKMGK]

Will these backplanes take both SAS and SATA drives?

 

Yes there designed for both.

 

I had no idea, that's great! So long as they don't fry drives of course. I'm rewiring power to mine this weekend so we'll see if all my drives survive. I'll power both Molex on each backplane..

[bcann]

There is no need, the second plug is for a redundant PSU.

[BLKMGK]

There is no need, the second plug is for a redundant PSU.

 

I'm aware that both don't need to be powered however I'd prefer to be certain not to overload connectors, wiring, or anything else.

[lionelhutz]

That B5 doesn't make much sense for the failure. It looks like a little cap connected from some trace to the ground plane. Shouldn't cause drive failures, just shorting the power supply or burning-up.

[bcann]

maybe not, but that is THE only visible thing i can see on the backplanes, if there is anything else dead I can't see it. the only other thing on the boards is a high level of white solder flux, but people have told me that should not short it.

[lionelhutz]

The solder flux could short the different power supplies together and do something like put 12V on the 5V power line.

 

The dual connections being used could also somehow cause load sharing on the backplanes taking some stress off certain components.

[bcann]

here is a sample pic, i've not looked to closely at how much is there on all the backplanes. but this one it is quite close to the power connectors.

[micron98]

bcann, I had another closer look at my backplanes and couldn't find any trace of burned caps or bad traces. From your pic, B5 does seem a bit burned but to me it seems as though this is burned flux rather than burned capacitor. I think when capacitors burn they burn in the middle, exposing its guts.

 

My case supplier said that they have sold 240+ cases in this year and I am the first to report this issue. I sent them the link to original issue

http://wsyntax.com/cs/killer-norco-case/

 

and they replied that it is an old post and no other customers reported the same issue.

 

Supplier said they will send 2 backplanes but I told them not to until I have confirmation that they have tested the boards and replacements WILL NOT burn more drives. Waiting for a week but no reply yet.

 

bcann, when you got yours replaced, what did you decide to do?

 

I have a few working sata / sas drives, but I dont want to test them on other backplanes as I am afraid they might get burned like other 10 drives.

 

May I ask all other 4224 users to post backplane version ( not sure which is version number but if you can post exactly it appears on the board, that would be super ) and type ( whether mini-sas connector or individual sas/sata connector )

 

Thanks for your input.

 

My backplanes

One or more drives burned : yes

Used hotswap : yes

Type : mini-sas

Case : 4224

Version :

94V-0

RoHS

 

Fuhe BP-001MB

6 Gb/s SAS / SATA

/2011.11.20

2011-11-21

[bcann]

bcann, I had another closer look at my backplanes and couldn't find any trace of burned caps or bad traces. From your pic, B5 does seem a bit burned but to me it seems as though this is burned flux rather than burned capacitor. I think when capacitors burn they burn in the middle, exposing its guts.

 

bcann, when you got yours replaced, what did you decide to do?

 

I have a few working sata / sas drives, but I dont want to test them on other backplanes as I am afraid they might get burned like other 10 drives.

 

May I ask all other 4224 users to post backplane version ( not sure which is version number but if you can post exactly it appears on the board, that would be super ) and type ( whether mini-sas connector or individual sas/sata connector )

 

Thanks for your input.

 

My backplanes

One or more drives burned : yes

Used hotswap : yes

Type : mini-sas

Case : 4224

Version :

94V-0

RoHS

 

Fuhe BP-001MB

6 Gb/s SAS / SATA

/2011.11.20

2011-11-21

 

igot mini sas connectors.

 

my board info:

 

case: 4224

94V-0

ROHS

FUHE BP-001C

6GB SAS/SATA

/2011.12.22

2011-12-22

 

As for what im gonna do im more then a bit worried, i dont want to put in all my 12 x 3TB drives, in fact there lucky i didn't put it in in the first place, otherwise i'd be flying down t their store, and possibly throwing the whole case through their window. I was not happy and im still not happy over losing 4 x sas drives that they wont replace, but once i get my backplanes back im gonna find a crappy drive and run that first, see if it fries.

 

im insisting ALL backplanes get replaced either way. this was supposed to be my test/play VM machine and nas device.

[Johnm]

@Bcann

You  might want to take a multimeter and test the molex plugs on your PSU. make sure that it is within specs.