-=SOLVED=- Upgrade PowerEdge T410 to Recognize Drives >2TB

[Dissones4U]

Hello all,

I've been reading through the forums for several days now and have started putting my rig together. Unfortunately it seems that it will only recognize drives that are <2TB. Although I'm not technologically challenged, I'm not familiar with servers at all, even the boot-up seems foreign to me. I think I've narrowed my problem down to the SAS6ir Raid controller but that's only a guess. I've read through all of the Dell manuals (user+tech) to no avail. My question is this, can I add a PCIe sata controller like this one from newegg and have the MoBo recognize drives that are >2TB? I've barely started and I've already made a bit of a mess of things by having (2) 4TB drives that I may not be able to use. If there is any way to get the larger drives in service I'd like to try because using 6 drives that are <2TB will leave me too short on HDD space. I appreciate any insight on my proposed solution as well as any alternatives that may be available.

Edited January 28, 2020 by Dissones4U
typo

[ashman70]

The SAS6ir RAID controller does not support drives larger than 2TB, that is definitely your problem. You could look on eBay for a Dell H310 RAID controller and then flash it yourself to Dell IT mode (pretty easy) and then you might have to get a breakout cable or not depending on what kind of backplane is in your server.

 

Are there no on board SATA ports you could use? They should support drives larger than 2TB. That PCIe SATA controller  you link to should work.

[Dissones4U]

Thank you ashman70,

This has definitely got me going in the right direction! I've been fussing with this all day without success. The mobo has sata plugs but the power harness doesn't have the typical sata power supply plugs. There are (2) 2x2 (4pin) plug heads labeled P3 and P4. These are connected to (2) harnesses that provide both power and data connection for (4) drives each and go directly to the SAS6ir controller. Since they incorporate the data part of the plug I can't use them for power and provide separate data cables to the mobo. I attempted to borrow the sata power from the dvd drive and connect the sata data cable directly to the mobo but the drive wasn't recognized at all. I'm giving up for now, since the sata card that I linked to doesn't supply power I may have no other option but to try the H310 you'd mentioned. I'll fuss with the current setup for a few more days to see if I can come up with a solution. I suspect the dvd sata may not supply enough power? I've searched for a 4 pin to multi sata harness but haven't seen one yet. Anyway, thank you again, I'll report back if I can figure something out.

[hcgonzalezpr]

7 hours ago, Dissones4U said:

Thank you ashman70,

This has definitely got me going in the right direction! I've been fussing with this all day without success. The mobo has sata plugs but the power harness doesn't have the typical sata power supply plugs. There are (2) 2x2 (4pin) plug heads labeled P3 and P4. These are connected to (2) harnesses that provide both power and data connection for (4) drives each and go directly to the SAS6ir controller. Since they incorporate the data part of the plug I can't use them for power and provide separate data cables to the mobo. I attempted to borrow the sata power from the dvd drive and connect the sata data cable directly to the mobo but the drive wasn't recognized at all. I'm giving up for now, since the sata card that I linked to doesn't supply power I may have no other option but to try the H310 you'd mentioned. I'll fuss with the current setup for a few more days to see if I can come up with a solution. I suspect the dvd sata may not supply enough power? I've searched for a 4 pin to multi sata harness but haven't seen one yet. Anyway, thank you again, I'll report back if I can figure something out.

 

I have this same server and ran into the same issue. The plugs are custom they looklike ATX P4 connectors but have both 12V/5V. I did research to use the H200 and the proper cables for the T410, but only found one page and they were way too expensive. I ended up replacing the whole box with a custom built.

 

Here what people on the DELL forum susggest for T410:

For Hot Swap Backplanes:

M400M - Primary HDD Cable PERC H200/H700 Card to B/P(Mini SAS to Mini SAS)

P215M - Secondary HDD Cable PERC H200/H700 Card to B/P(Mini SAS to Mini SAS)

 

For Cabled:

VKFX8 - Primary HDD Cable with Power PERC H200/H700 Card to HDD*4

ND63T - Secondary HDD Cable with Power PERC H200/H700 Card to HDD*2

 

Source: http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/servers/f/906/t/19599252

[Dissones4U]

Unfortunately I don't have the coin for a new build right now, just dropped roughly $440 on (4) New WD Red drives (2) 4TB and (2) 2TB. I was however able to get the 4TB drive recognized by the UnRaid OS. I'm not sure what fixed it as I am tired and changed several things at once (which I know better than to do). It was either a Bios setting or the fact that the drive was not initialized / no file system. I suspect it was bios but now the machine will not auto boot UnRaid after power down, I have to press F1 at the prompt, hopefully I can fix that. After reinstalling the drive I borrowed the sata power from the DVD slot then used a separate data cable to connect directly to mobo. While this is good, I still need to find a solution for getting power to the other drives without using the SAS6ir harness. I'm assuming that the harness only carries data to the controller and not power, if I can confirm that I will consider cutting the data portion of the plug away...we'll see what my research leads me to on this. I feel like I'm well under way and should be able to add the 4TB drive as cache after preclear works its magic.

 

*** EDITED 1/28/2020 ( just in case anyone is trying to do the same thing ) ***

I've recently removed the Dell SAS6ir card freeing up both the P3 and P4 power connectors. I then added the Dell X236G cable which when connected to the P3 (I think it would work on P4 as well) powers 4HDD with separate sata/data cables that go straight to the Mobo. I then utilized the DVD power as before for two additional drives going straight to the Mobo. I then added a $17 sata card where the SAS6ir was so that I could plug in my SSD cache which is powered off the DVD power with a splitter. I now have 14TB across 7 disks with two Xeon X5675 processors @3.07GHz. If I wanted to, I believe that I could safely add a second Dell X236G cable to the P4 plug giving me 4 more drives but I'd need something like an Icy Dock 2 bay to 3 bay converter to actually get them in to the case, and an additional sata card. I don't really see the need though...

Edited January 28, 2020 by Dissones4U
Added info for future reference

[lordbeavis]

I have the same server that I picked up from a thrift store for $30. just upgraded the ram and cpu's. I made my own custom cable and extended the dvd one. I also added a del lsi 9202-8i card and flashed it to IT mode so I would have enough connections for 14 drives but I'm only using 12. I have a generic icy dock made by evercool called EVERCOOL ARMOR HD-AR-R-BK. I have two plastic trays that fit in the pcie slots holding my ssd's for my cache array. What I am having a problem with is the cpu and power management. I don't believe the cpu's are throttling at idle which is making the server too hot and the fan is running at turbo. I also added two 120mm fans to the back of the drive cage and one that blows on the pcie slots. I also added 2 old cpu fans held on by zip ties to the heatsinks that are being controlled by a small temperature sensing board. What are you using to monitor the temps and what settings are you using in the bios for the power management?

Because of the lack of pcie 3.0 for modern video cards and this heat/noise issue I'm about to just build a system using  a Chinese x99 motherboard and 1 or 2 Xeon E5-2678 v3 12 core cpu's