PowerEdge R520 not seeing 8th drive

[lstef11]

Hi Guys
having a odd issue i cant work out, i have TrueNAS-SCALE-22.02.0.1 installed on a Dell PowerEdge R520. for some reason truenas wont see the 8th drive, the perc card has been flashed with the IT firmware, i can see all 8 drives other OS's(i have booted portabe linux and windows and can see all 8 drives) the other 7 drives work fine but regardless of what i do the last drive will not show up in truenas, its not a failed drive as i have tried 2 brand new drives and even tried swapping 1 of the other drives to that same slot and it seems it just wont pass that last drive slot to truenas, the light on the drive bay lights up when the drive is inserted and like i said i can see the drive in other OS's it just wont seem to show in truenas,

can anyone help me out here please, iv googled as much as i can and im lost.

thanks in advance

 

[Ericloewe]

I seem to remember this being common with ancient firmware, like pre-P16.

 

[lstef11]

firmware of the server itself or the perc card?

 

[Ericloewe]

Well, neither. LSI SAS2 IT mode (also known as mps in FreeBSD), which should apply, if I understood correctly that you crossflashed an H310 Mini or H710 of some sort to a LSI SAS franken-9207 (e.g. following these instructions).
For reference, the correct firmware version is 20.00.07, give or take a few zeros.

 

[lstef11]

O sorry now I'm following you, yes that is correct mine was the H710, I remember after flashing all the drives did show up originally because I created 2 pools using 4 drives each, but now the last drive just won't register, was there ever any solutions to the people that were having issues that you know of ?

 

[jeremyoha450]

if a drive showed before and doesnt show now. it'll either be drive issue or connection/cable issue.

 

[lstef11]

Nope, as said in the original post not the drive as 2x brand new drives don't show in the same slot ether and if it was connection/cable issue they wouldn't show up in idrac and other OS's and again as i already stated in the first post they do, so it has to be something with truenas

 

[Ericloewe]

O sorry now I'm following you, yes that is correct mine was the H710, I remember after flashing all the drives did show up originally because I created 2 pools using 4 drives each, but now the last drive just won't register, was there ever any solutions to the people that were having issues that you know of ?

As I said, I think it was a bug in ancient firmware versions. The first thing to check is what version you have, and if it's not P20.00.07, update it.

 

[lstef11]

As I said, I think it was a bug in ancient firmware versions. The first thing to check is what version you have, and if it's not P20.00.07, update it.

Yeah just checked that then, it is on Vp20 so that's not the issue unfortunately. Any other ideas ?

 

[Ericloewe]

What disks are you using? Some newer disks have been known to be somewhat more problematic with older SAS controllers. I realize they're working with other OSes, but it could be combination of HBA firmware and driver and disk firmware,

 

[lstef11]

What disks are you using? Some newer disks have been known to be somewhat more problematic with older SAS controllers. I realize they're working with other OSes, but it could be combination of HBA firmware and driver and disk firmware,

All WD Red 3tb drives, also tried with WD blue and same thing, its really got me puzzled

 

[mervincm]

I wonder if it is a disk spin up issue. Have you tried a reboot vs a cold power off /power on? Perhaps increase boot delays in BIOS / TrueNAS. Is it related to the physical slot in your backplane, or the port on your controller? (not sure if you can move cables to change the relationship on your server, but I suspect you can)

 

[Ericloewe]

All WD Red 3tb drives, also tried with WD blue and same thing, its really got me puzzled

Those should be fine, the issues I remember were all with Seagate disks, IIRC...

Is it always the disk in the last bay? What happens if you only have a disk in said bay?

Is it related to the physical slot in your backplane, or the port on your controller? (not sure if you can move cables to change the relationship on your server, but I suspect you can)

Should be doable and worth a shot.

 

[lstef11]

Yeah it was always the last bay that was the issue, didn't matter if I changed drives it was always the same bay that just won't be seen in truenas, I think it might be the connecter on the backplane has an issue, just odd that it was recognised in other OS'S but maybe it was recognised but not mounted or something, I didn't check if I could read/write to them.

 

[lstef11]

well bugger me dead, there was another SAS port on the mainboard labeled SAS3 that was never used and had a plug in it so i thought what the hell and moved the 2nd SAS cable accross to that and now truenas see's all the drives, not sure how or why that worked but im not complaining, thanks for the suggestion @mervincm and if anyone else comes across the same issue, true switching SAS ports i guess lol, thanks for the help guys.

 

[Ericloewe]

So the disks were connected to the SATA controller on the PCH? But then why the weird behavior? I'm honestly more confused than before...