Warning purchasing USB hard drives


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Preclear Successful

... Total time 40:05:21

... Pre-Read time 9:09:02 (151 MB/s)

... Zeroing time 8:11:57 (169 MB/s)

... Post-Read time 22:43:19 (61 MB/s)

 

 

Now installed in Tower1 as new parity drive

Parity-Sync in progress.

Total size: 5 TB

Current position: 42.5 MB (0 %)

Estimated speed: 42.5 MB/sec

Estimated finish: 1 day, 8 hours, 37 minutes

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4,883,770,552 x 1024 = 5,000,981,045,248 ... which is > 5TB by disk drive size standards, so it's likely that's the correct number.

 

I suspect this is a display anomaly in MyMain, which doesn't "know" standard values for 5TB or 6TB drives.    I suspect bjp will be updating this in the not-so-distant future (we need to establish the correct values for these - I suspect you have provided that for 5TB units) ... but meanwhile, just use the process bjp noted earlier to "tell" MyMenu that your drive is okay.

 

Worst case:  If it actually has a tiny HPA, you could eventually learn that when you try to add a 5TB drive that doesn't have one -- UnRAID wouldn't allow it (since it would be larger than your parity drive).    You'd simply have to use the new 5TB unit as parity, and use this one as a data drive.

 

If you really want to be certain, attach the drive to a spare system (or just unplug all the drives except this one);  boot to a DOS CD with HDAT2; and see if it shows an HPA.  If so, you can remove it with the SetMax function.  You don't actually have to have ONLY this drive in the system - I just always do that as a paranoid precaution against accidents when I'm using a tool like HDAT2.

 

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I am thinking it actually was "HPA?" on the other box I precleared it on and I was just looking at the wrong view. I will go with your Plan A suggestion... if I run across a 5TB that is larger, it becomes the parity drive :P I have both boxes churning right now (tower2 preclearing tower1's old parity to be new data drive and tower1 rebuilding parity on 5TB). Hate to disturb them when they are working lol

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Good choice.  I suspect that the drive's fine with no HPA, but in any event, even if there is, it's an insignificant amount of space ... and a trivial workaround if you later get a 5TB drive with a few more bytes.    I'd do exactly that -- just "tell" MyMain it's fine, and then the warning won't show up anymore  :)

 

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I did confirm that 552 is the magic number. But I see some are showing 552 and others 532. 532 is not the magic number and would generate the HPA warning.

 

If people getting the HPA warning on larger drives, if you could, besides checking the size (k) on the details page, also run the command ...

 

hdparm -N /dev/sdX

 

and post results, that may help us solve the mysteries. :)

 

When I run it on a 4T drive I get these results ...

 

/dev/sdt:

max sectors  = 7814037168/7814037168, HPA is disabled

 

When I wrote myMain, I found that not all controllers worked properly with hdparm -N, so went with the procedure of comparing the size (K) with a set of known values, but accepting anything ending in 552 because at the time all modern drives ended with that. I naively assumed it would continue!

 

Thanks!

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Drives showing HPA in myMain:

 

Tower-test unRAID 6.0-beta2 mobo: Supermicro H8DME-2 controller: Supermicro SAT2-MV8 hdd: ST4000DM000-1F2168_xxx

myMain detail: size(k) 3,907,018,548 size(000s) 4,000,786,993

root@Tower-test:/# hdparm -N /dev/sdn

/dev/sdn:

The running kernel lacks CONFIG_IDE_TASK_IOCTL support for this device.

READ_NATIVE_MAX_ADDRESS_EXT failed: Invalid argument

 

Tower unRAID 5.0 mobo: Supermicro X7SBE controller: Supermicro SAT2-MV8 hdd: WDC_WD40EZRX-00SPEB0_WD-xxx

myMain detail: size(k) 3,906,985,768 size(000s) 4,000,753,426

root@Tower:/# hdparm -N /dev/sdc

/dev/sdc:

READ_NATIVE_MAX_ADDRESS_EXT failed: Input/output error

 

???

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Drives showing HPA in myMain:

 

Tower-test unRAID 6.0-beta2 mobo: Supermicro H8DME-2 controller: Supermicro SAT2-MV8 hdd: ST4000DM000-1F2168_xxx

myMain detail: size(k) 3,907,018,548 size(000s) 4,000,786,993

root@Tower-test:/# hdparm -N /dev/sdn

/dev/sdn:

The running kernel lacks CONFIG_IDE_TASK_IOCTL support for this device.

READ_NATIVE_MAX_ADDRESS_EXT failed: Invalid argument

 

Tower unRAID 5.0 mobo: Supermicro X7SBE controller: Supermicro SAT2-MV8 hdd: WDC_WD40EZRX-00SPEB0_WD-xxx

myMain detail: size(k) 3,906,985,768 size(000s) 4,000,753,426

root@Tower:/# hdparm -N /dev/sdc

/dev/sdc:

READ_NATIVE_MAX_ADDRESS_EXT failed: Input/output error

 

???

 

As I said...

 

When I wrote myMain, I found that not all controllers worked properly with hdparm -N, so went with the procedure of comparing the size (K) with a set of known values, but accepting anything ending in 552 because at the time all modern drives ended with that. I naively assumed it would continue!

 

If you moved the drive to a motherboard port and re-ran the hdparm -N I think it would work.

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...

If you moved the drive to a motherboard port and re-ran the hdparm -N I think it would work.

Thanks... I'll mark this as a "to do" during next scheduled work involving opening the case... I'll need the case opened 'cause I was idiot enough to not make a note which hotswap cage is connected to mobo and which to controllers...

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  • 2 years later...

In case someone like me read this after he bought WD MyBook 8 TB (with Helium NAS HDD).

Don´t worry, this output is from the internal HDD:

 

root@Tower:~# hdparm -I /dev/sdd

 

/dev/sdd:

 

ATA device, with non-removable media

        Model Number:      WDC WD80EZZX-11CSGA0

        Serial Number:      VLGLE7HY

        Firmware Revision:  83.H0A03

        Transport:          Serial, ATA8-AST, SATA 1.0a, SATA II Extensions, SATA Rev 2.5, SATA Rev 2.6, SATA Rev 3.0; Revision: ATA8-AST T13 Project D1697 Revision 0b

Standards:

        Used: unknown (minor revision code 0x0029)

        Supported: 9 8 7 6 5

        Likely used: 9

Configuration:

        Logical        max    current

        cylinders      16383  16383

        heads          16      16

        sectors/track  63      63

        --

        CHS current addressable sectors:  16514064

        LBA    user addressable sectors:  268435455

        LBA48  user addressable sectors:15628053168

        Logical  Sector size:                  512 bytes

        Physical Sector size:                  4096 bytes

        Logical Sector-0 offset:                  0 bytes

        device size with M = 1024*1024:    7630885 MBytes

        device size with M = 1000*1000:    8001563 MBytes (8001 GB)

        cache/buffer size  = unknown

        Form Factor: 3.5 inch

        Nominal Media Rotation Rate: 5400

Capabilities:

        LBA, IORDY(can be disabled)

        Queue depth: 32

        Standby timer values: spec'd by Standard, no device specific minimum

        R/W multiple sector transfer: Max = 16  Current = 16

        Advanced power management level: disabled

        DMA: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 udma5 *udma6

            Cycle time: min=120ns recommended=120ns

        PIO: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4

            Cycle time: no flow control=120ns  IORDY flow control=120ns

Commands/features:

        Enabled Supported:

          *    SMART feature set

                Security Mode feature set

          *    Power Management feature set

          *    Write cache

          *    Look-ahead

          *    Host Protected Area feature set

          *    WRITE_BUFFER command

          *    READ_BUFFER command

          *    NOP cmd

          *    DOWNLOAD_MICROCODE

                Advanced Power Management feature set

                Power-Up In Standby feature set

          *    SET_FEATURES required to spinup after power up

                SET_MAX security extension

          *    48-bit Address feature set

          *    Device Configuration Overlay feature set

          *    Mandatory FLUSH_CACHE

          *    FLUSH_CACHE_EXT

          *    SMART error logging

          *    SMART self-test

          *    Media Card Pass-Through

          *    General Purpose Logging feature set

          *    WRITE_{DMA|MULTIPLE}_FUA_EXT

          *    64-bit World wide name

          *    URG for READ_STREAM[_DMA]_EXT

          *    URG for WRITE_STREAM[_DMA]_EXT

          *    WRITE_UNCORRECTABLE_EXT command

          *    {READ,WRITE}_DMA_EXT_GPL commands

          *    Segmented DOWNLOAD_MICROCODE

                unknown 119[6]

          *    unknown 119[7]

          *    Gen1 signaling speed (1.5Gb/s)

          *    Gen2 signaling speed (3.0Gb/s)

          *    Gen3 signaling speed (6.0Gb/s)

          *    Native Command Queueing (NCQ)

          *    Host-initiated interface power management

          *    Phy event counters

          *    NCQ priority information

          *    READ_LOG_DMA_EXT equivalent to READ_LOG_EXT

                Non-Zero buffer offsets in DMA Setup FIS

          *    DMA Setup Auto-Activate optimization

                Device-initiated interface power management

                In-order data delivery

          *    Software settings preservation

                unknown 78[7]

                unknown 78[10]

                unknown 78[11]

          *    SMART Command Transport (SCT) feature set

          *    SCT Write Same (AC2)

          *    SCT Error Recovery Control (AC3)

          *    SCT Features Control (AC4)

          *    SCT Data Tables (AC5)

          *    reserved 69[3]

          *    reserved 69[4]

          *    WRITE BUFFER DMA command

          *    READ BUFFER DMA command

 

root@Tower:~# hdparm -N /dev/sdd

 

/dev/sdd:

max sectors  = 15628053168/15628053168, HPA is disabled

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  • 4 weeks later...

Hi Guys,

 

Has anyone tried the 8TB Seagate Backup+ or Plus Hub external drives?  I got 2 on Black Friday for a decent price (~ $170@).  Others have removed the Sata drive and found it to be Seagate's Archive 5900 RPM drive which BlackBlaze seems to like (????).

 

Just testing in external case as an Unassigned Drive at the moment, but seems quite good. 

 

Is there a way to check for HPA w/o directly mounting the drive into my UnRaid (ie cracking the case)?

 

Dave

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Is there a way to check for HPA w/o directly mounting the drive into my UnRaid (ie cracking the case)?
Check the reported size in bytes and see if it matches the normal 8TB size. If it's smaller, it could be either HPA, or the USB interface doing some funky translation, or it's simply a totally different model. Either way, if it's smaller, the only penalty is to make sure you never try to use it as a parity drive. The small size difference won't hurt anything if it's a data drive.
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Is there a way to check for HPA w/o directly mounting the drive into my UnRaid (ie cracking the case)?
Check the reported size in bytes and see if it matches the normal 8TB size. If it's smaller, it could be either HPA, or the USB interface doing some funky translation, or it's simply a totally different model. Either way, if it's smaller, the only penalty is to make sure you never try to use it as a parity drive. The small size difference won't hurt anything if it's a data drive.

 

Hi jonathanm,

 

Thanks for the reply, unfortunately it will far exceed my largest drive (5TB's) so it must become Parity not Data. 

 

I've attached a copy of the Unassigned Drive details (pic) and it probably has an HPA included since 134 MB have been "used".  It is currently formatted as NTFS which I will change to XFS before use.  I've read through the Thread, but confess having some difficulty in knowing how to tell the actual size and/or how to delete the HPA if it exists.

 

Dave

Screen_Shot_2016-12-03_at_11_16.01_AM.png.cad999fa095849ce702f199728d9f006.png

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That 134MB appears to be a 2nd partition, NOT an HPA (which wouldn't show up on the display)

 

If you attach this drive to a PC, and go to Disk Management, you should be able to simply delete both of the existing partitions ... then have another look and see what it shows.

 

Run a /dev/sdX  (where X is the assigned letter for that drive) to see exactly what the sector count it.  Then you'll know if there's an HPA or not.

 

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Hi garycase/C3,

 

Thanks, just ran your hdparm command and got the following (pic).  I can easily attach the drive to my Mac & connect to Windows via Parallels to clear the partition.

 

There was an interesting article by Mr. Antman (England) checking a Seagate Archive drive in a Drobo which failed d/t the SMS type file structure being used.  In summary the Write Head is larger than the Read Head, thus multiple writes to the HD means the data must be read (d/t size) then re-written.  Not sure how that might affect Parity ????  Interestingly he also tore apart a WD My Book 8TB and found a HGST mfg drive enclosed, but no details as to which series (desktop, green, purple, blue ...).

 

Let me know if my drive would be ok for Parity and your thoughs about its SMS file structure if you have the time.

 

Many Thanks for the replies!

 

Dave

Screen_Shot_2016-12-03_at_12_18.54_PM.png.d74895f678939f27e4d50c5fde7d2f48.png

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Hi garycase/C3,

 

Thanks, just ran your hdparm command and got the following (pic).  I can easily attach the drive to my Mac & connect to Windows via Parallels to clear the partition.

 

There was an interesting article by Mr. Antman (England) checking a Seagate Archive drive in a Drobo which failed d/t the SMS type file structure being used.  In summary the Write Head is larger than the Read Head, thus multiple writes to the HD means the data must be read (d/t size) then re-written.  Not sure how that might affect Parity ????  Interestingly he also tore apart a WD My Book 8TB and found a HGST mfg drive enclosed, but no details as to which series (desktop, green, purple, blue ...).

 

Let me know if my drive would be ok for Parity and your thoughs about its SMS file structure if you have the time.

 

Many Thanks for the replies!

 

Dave

 

That's the right sector count for an 8TB drive, so you're good to go.  In fact, you don't even need to bother removing the old partitions => UnRAID will re-initialize the drive anyway.

 

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