WDC vs Toshiba 4TB Drive Size Mis-Match / HPA? + Failed Drive

[air_marshall]

Hi Guys and Girls,

 

Looking for some advice/assistance here after a good thorough search on the issue.

 

Long story short - I dropped a data disk spinner during a re-case and it seems the drive is now bad. Horrendous clicking on power, almost results in boot failure but we eventually get there and the drive is just missing. I haven't started the array since due fear of data loss given the findings below.

 

It's highly likely that the drives are now plugged in to different controllers than there were before. I had 4 drives in a Mediasonic ProBox vis eSata from one of the PCIe controller cards. All drives are now internal via mobo sata and 2x differed PCIe Sata cards. However, the 2 drives in question are now on the mobo sata.

 

No worries I thought, I have a new (pre-cleared) Toshiba X300 4TB for the array anyway so I'll just use that as a replacement drive instead.

 

WRONG - Parity Drive must be biggest in system....

 

Wait, my parity drive is a WDC 4TB how can this be....

 

Anyway:

 

Disk /dev/sdb: 3.65 TiB, 4000753476096 bytes, 7813971633 sectors
Disk model: WDC WD40EZRX-00S
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: F60C7E9F-92E4-4F57-86B1-1E6FB3E1DB77

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

/dev/sdb:
SG_IO: bad/missing sense data, sb[]:  70 00 05 00 00 00 00 0a 04 51 40 00 21 04 00 00 80 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
SG_IO: bad/missing sense data, sb[]:  70 00 05 00 00 00 00 0a 04 51 40 01 21 04 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
 max sectors   = 7813971633/1(1?), HPA setting seems invalid (buggy kernel device driver?)

Disk /dev/sdf: 3.65 TiB, 4000787030016 bytes, 7814037168 sectors
Disk model: TOSHIBA HDWE140 
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

 

I'm just running an extended SMART on the WDC to check that, but want to seek guidance in the meantime. I'm assuming the WDC drive is short on the size / sector count based on a couple of reports from friends of their own 4TB drive size stats.

 

As far as I can remember the WDC drive has never been on a gigabyte board but it may have been shucked from an external drive (I have no record of purchase though).

 

What is my best option here to ensure no data loss and minimise downtime.

 

1. Accept the difference and carry out a parity swap

 

2. Investigate and try and fix the size difference, then add the Toshiba as the replacement drive for the failed unit (with you help)

 

3. Do something completely different and much more robust guided by all you smarter experts on this forum.

 

First time facing this issue.

 

Any more info required please let me know.

 

TIA,

 

Dan

 

 

 

tower-diagnostics-20201107-1353.zip

[JorgeB]

Parity disk is a shucked My Book USB device (though I remember some people buying these as if they were internal drives a few years ago), anyway that's why it's slightly smaller, you can use the parity swap procedure.

 

[air_marshall]

Thanks @JorgeB

 

The extended SMART passed ok and a did a parity swap followed by a rebuild and all was well.

 

I now have bigger issues! See my other post! Eeeeeek