SOLVED 8TB drive on old p6t7 ws supercomputer

[don256us]

I was gifted a few used but working 8 TB drives and I want to use them in my UnRAID server. When I installed one of them, it would not show up. Is that a thing? Can an older MB like the p6t7 ws supercomputer not communicate with an 8TB HDD? Can I install a RAID card to bridge the interface between the HDD and MB? It's an X58 chipset which is old old.

Maybe I just need to reformat it? I'm not sure what file system it is using but maybe I could format it in GPT on one of my newer machines then it will work? I'll try that and post back.

I have installed the newest firmware to the machine and I have the most powerful Xeon CPU that the MB can take. I want to say a 3960? 3.47 GHz and 12 cores.

 

[Janus67]

Do they not show up in BIOS either? Do you have the SATA ports enabled in BIOS?

For what it's worth, you can use a HBA (host bus adapter) and it's widely recommended, FWIW, for unRAID setups. Noting that you want a RAID card that is in 'IT' mode which means it works as a JBOD [just a bunch of disks] instead of having it run the RAID software/firmware and trying to manage that. It's the same with unRAID as it is with True/FreeNAS etc.

 

[don256us]

Thanks Janus. I'm really strugling with these 8 TB. I took it and the other one and put them into my newer X399 chipset Threadripper machine and neither shows up there either. I booted into UEFI and tried different cables and SATA ports. They work. Just not for me. You're also right about using a RAID card in the JBOD configuration. Looks like an HBA has the same idea in mind for me.

 

[don256us]

HBA is a new term for me. Turns out that this is what I was looking at before looking at older RAID controllers. I had found one HBA that was PCIe 3.0 x1 that had up to 20 SATA ports. While attractive in marketing atire, I fell like an $80 unit like that might be a bottle neck for movie watching and data storage.

I do have a much newer board that I got as part of a Newegg shuffle with no CPU at the moment. It doesn't have enough SATA ports but I can easily add a few with a PCIe to SATA card that hold something more reasonable like 4 SATA ports. I would then turn my P6T7 board into a folding rig with all of it's PCIe lanes using Nvidia 3060's when they drop down to retail or lower. That might be a plan.

 

[Robert17]

"using Nvidia 3060's when they drop down to retail or lower."

By that time you can go with PCIe8 and NVidia 6XXX series cards.

 

[don256us]

That was funny Robert but shut up anyway.
You may be right but When I rebuild the farm I don't want to sink my retirement into it.

 

[Janus67]

If you check out the unraid subreddit or their dedicated forums you can find some suggestions for HBA cards. I have an H310 in my new unRAID box, it came with a couple SFF splitters [basically SAS->4x SATA] for my 8x12TB drives. Seems to be working fine. I have a different one in my old FreeNAS box that I'm working to decommission eventually as well.

Are the 8TB drives enterprise drives, or just standard ones? Were they shucked from an external? If they were, it's quite possible you need to put kapton tape over the 3v line for the SATA power [I had to do that for my shucked 12TB drives]

 

[don256us]

They are shucked. I forgot about that. Good call. I don't know when I'll get the time or energy to look at it again but I will look down that path and post an update.

 

[don256us]

I did a google search based on the shucked status of the drive(s) and found exactly what you were talking about as it relates to my exact drives.

How to Fix the 3.3V Pin Issue in White Label Disks Shucked From Western Digital 8TB Easystore Drives

How to Fix the 3.3V Pin Issue in White Label Disks Shucked From Western Digital 8TB Easystore Drives: If you find this instructable useful, please consider subscribing to my Youtube channel for upcoming DIY tutorials concerning technology. Thank you!

www.instructables.com

The second option that is given in that link is to use a 4-pin molex to SATA adapter which I think I have in droves so I'll probably try that after I get my booster shot tonight. We could be in business here.

 

[Janus67]

Nice, good luck mang!

 

[don256us]

I'm so pumped by your suggestion working out. I had completely forgotten that this was a thing. I'll post back after testing later tonight or tomorrow.

 

[don256us]

Quick update. My droves of Molex to Sata power adaptors turned out to be 1. I only found 1. But that worked. I shut down my unRAID, removed my parity drive and inserted the 8 TB. When I started it up, it was there ready to be selected. unRAID is rebuilding my parity now which takes just over 10 hours on my system.

Thank you very much Janus. Your advice saved me a lot of further headache.

 

[Janus67]

Super welcome!

 

[don256us]

Update.

The tape came in Friday evening. I was able to make my current 8TB work without much issue. I then went to work putting a piece of tape on pin #3 for my second 8TB and was not able to show the dextarity needed to make it happen. I finally got tired of trying and used my one molex to sata adaptor.

The frustration is that my first attempt went easy. With my first try under my belt, I saw no issue going forward. Spoiler:

Spoiler

I had issue.

Fun note, rebuilding the unraid array took nearly 24 hours now that I have 20 TB of storage.

 

[don256us]

I spoke to my son who used these drives prior to giving them to me. He has a modular PSU. He took the daisy chain of SATA power connectors and cut the 3.3v wire at the base. I may just use a pin extractor to remove the 3.3v pin from my two SATA power cables and call it good. Much easier and I don't think that any current HDDs use the 3.3v anyway.

 

[Janus67]

FWIW you don't have to cover just the single pin, you can do wide enough to cover about the 3 at that side to the corner IIRC so it makes it a bit easier. I used a guitar pick/credit card to smooth it onto the pins after laying it where it needed to be.