Needing advice…I’m unsure if i have possible disks , cable or HBA issues.
I purchased 10 new EXOS X18 18Tb’s and an LSI 9400-16i HBA for a new storage build to run TrueNAS. On a new install of Scale, using the supplied SFF-8643 to 4 port SATA with HBA. It came with 3 sets, tried them all.
Even when the drives are not connected to the backplane, some drives are NOT being detected by the HBA, Yet the non-detected drives are found when directly connected to SATA on the mainboard. They’ll disk appear in disk management in Windows as expected, Seatools finds no issue.
I have tried;
FW updated the (ThinkCenter 430-16i HBA to latest version, it’s not in tri-mode just SAS/SSD mode.
FW updated the EXOS X18 drives to SN1 various SN6 versions, no difference.
On the TrueNAS side i’ve ran and confirmed all commands that the correct driver is being used. On boot the HBA doesn’t find all drives either.
NOTE: The cables are the only thing I haven’t replaced during troubleshooting.
My thoughts are If a disk is detected by the HBA with specific cables / controller port, then If try the same cable with a non-detected drive, then surely the cable isn’t the issue? Maybe i’m wrong?
I’ve played with all cable combinations, controller ports etc. Nothing seems to have 1 nor 3 of the non-detected drives appear. Even with all other drives disconnected.
Looking for issues with the HBA (port?), cable, and drives are relative obvious sources for issues.
Systematic switching tested known components with unknown or suspected failing components should help positively identify all working components.
Another issue that may be a culprit here is not an issue in any one component, but the system as a whole.
(Relatively) large number of disk drives require a significant amount of power - an enormous amount during spin-up, then less during operation. Issues in power delivery can cause not all drives to show up although each one is working perfectly by itself.
Make sure power delivery is not what is causing your issue by configuring staggered spin-up of disks (should be a setting in you HBA firmware) and ensuring a working and sufficiently powerful PSU to bring up and operate all those drives.
The HBA staggers drive spinup with a max of 2 drives as one time.
In my test i’ve tried powering ON all disks, 1 disk and groups of disk across all different ports, to try and find a pattern and isolate the drives not being detected.
To be clear the disks that aren’t detected on the HBA aren’t random. It’s the same physical disks each time.
When i connected the drives in the silverstone backplane the drive not being detected shows a solid blue light, the other drives which do get found on the HBA how a blue light which later goes off.
I’d RMA any drive that fails when connected with different cables and to different ports on an HBA that works with other drives. Especially, when they’re the only drives connected.
Swap drives and look for issues in the backplane as well.