Hello People,

 

i just finished building my NAS and installing some of my HDD´s and im still on the trial license for now.

For some reason all of my HDD´s are not being detected at all and there is no indication as to why that is.

 

The system is detecting both of my NVMe cache drives but nothing that is connected to the SATA ports at all.

Please post the diagnostics: Tools -> Diagnostics

I think we need to know more about your hardware to give any view.   
 

Posting you system’s diagnostics zip file (obtained via Tools -> Diagnostics) might also help with providing advice.

heres the diagnostics file

thevault-diagnostics-20201207-1425.zip

By having dual NVMe devices installed you lose the first SATA port, all the other ones have nothing connected:

 

Dec  7 05:23:36 TheVault kernel: ata5: SATA link down (SStatus 4 SControl 300)
Dec  7 05:23:36 TheVault kernel: ata2: SATA link down (SStatus 4 SControl 300)
Dec  7 05:23:36 TheVault kernel: ata3: SATA link down (SStatus 4 SControl 300)
Dec  7 05:23:36 TheVault kernel: ata6: SATA link down (SStatus 4 SControl 300)
Dec  7 05:23:36 TheVault kernel: ata4: SATA link down (SStatus 4 SControl 300)

 

1 minute ago, JorgeB said:

By having dual NVMe devices installed you lose the first SATA port, all the other ones have nothing connected:

 

Dec  7 05:23:36 TheVault kernel: ata5: SATA link down (SStatus 4 SControl 300)
Dec  7 05:23:36 TheVault kernel: ata2: SATA link down (SStatus 4 SControl 300)
Dec  7 05:23:36 TheVault kernel: ata3: SATA link down (SStatus 4 SControl 300)
Dec  7 05:23:36 TheVault kernel: ata6: SATA link down (SStatus 4 SControl 300)
Dec  7 05:23:36 TheVault kernel: ata4: SATA link down (SStatus 4 SControl 300)

 

yea i know that this is why i am not using the one SATA port that is getting disabled.

4 of the 5 other ports have a SATA cable connected and 3 HDD´s are installed.

 

i already double checked my wiring as the im going from 4x SATA to one SFF 8643 backplane but its all good and the drives are also powered up.

Do they show up in the board BIOS?

21 minutes ago, Pixel5 said:

3 HDD´s are installed

Tell us more about these disks.

27 minutes ago, JorgeB said:

Do they show up in the board BIOS?

just moved the NAS to hook up a monitor and there is actually nothing being detected in the BIOS.

 

That means either my brand new cable is broken or the motherboards SATA ports are all broken.

Just tried both of the drive cages to make sure its not the backplane that is broken and its not being detected in either of the cages so i suspect its the cable.

Should have ordered two cables just in case...

15 minutes ago, trurl said:

Tell us more about these disks.

Are these shucked drives?

1 minute ago, trurl said:

Are these shucked drives?

i dont know what that means.

6 minutes ago, trurl said:

Are these shucked drives?

ah just found something on google.

No these are two Iron Wolf Pro 8TB drives and one WD Red 3TB drives 

Shuched means drives removed from USB enclosures, some of these don't work if power by a SATA connector with 3.3v, but in any case until they show up in the BIOS they will never be detected by Unraid.

48 minutes ago, JorgeB said:

Shuched means drives removed from USB enclosures, some of these don't work if power by a SATA connector with 3.3v, but in any case until they show up in the BIOS they will never be detected by Unraid.

i just took basically everything apart and connected via a standard SATA cable and the drive was detected in the BIOS so its most likely the one cable going from the backplane to the SATA ports or both backplanes are broken but that seems very unlikely.

50 minutes ago, Pixel5 said:

most likely the one cable going from the backplane to the SATA ports

What type of cable did you use for that, and did that specific cable ever work? There are 2 types, forward and reverse breakout, they are not interchangeable even though they physically connect and look identical.

7 minutes ago, jonathanm said:

What type of cable did you use for that, and did that specific cable ever work? There are 2 types, forward and reverse breakout, they are not interchangeable even though they physically connect and look identical.

i just completed this build so i have never used this cable before, the package just says SFF-8643 to 4x SATA

Its a completely passive cable so i would be very surprised if it had any kind of direction its supposed to be used at.

Also there is not a single cable like this i could find online that says anything about being directional

The SFF <-> SATA type cables are ALWAYS directional I believe as the internal wiring is different.    Very confusing as they look identical for the two different directions.

2 minutes ago, itimpi said:

The SFF <-> SATA type cables are ALWAYS directional I believe as the internal wiring is different.    Very confusing as they look identical for the two different directions.

so how do i know what i need when they are all the same and dont even specify what they are exactly?

 

Just now, Pixel5 said:

so how do i know what i need when they are all the same and dont even specify what they are exactly?

 

 

17 minutes ago, jonathanm said:

There are 2 types, forward and reverse breakout

Forward goes from SAS controller to 4 individual SATA drives, reverse goes from 4 SATA controllers to SAS backplane.

well now that i know both versions exist i finally found the correct one and they do indeed look exactly the same.

lets see if this works once it arrives.

so first of all thanks for the help guys and i also just found a way to know which cable is which, there is a subtile difference in the amount of contacts on the SAS side of the cable.

The forward cable only has very few connections while the reverse has a ton of contacts so it can carry each independent SATA connection.

The difference can be seen on these two cables here, i wish i knew that earlier.

https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B00FOR5M8O/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s02?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B01F376530/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

1 hour ago, Pixel5 said:

The forward cable only has very few connections while the reverse has a ton of contacts so it can carry each independent SATA connection.

I would not count on that as a differentiator, because some manufacturers may not use different connectors. The cost of keeping an unnecessary SKU in the manufacturing process may not outweigh the cost savings of a less complex connector.