Drive Recognition Problem on ProLiant DL380e Gen8

[Markus Vollmer]

Hi,

I am running a ProLiant DL-380e Gen8 with the 12+2 drive option and Windows Server 2012 R2 as a media server in my home.

As media content needs a lot of space, I had been using Seagate 8TB archive drives successfully. As the storage needs increased, I started replacing the 8TB SATA drives with 16 TB SAS drives, one at a time.

My current setup includes

• 6x 16TB SAS Seagate ST16000NM002G
• 2x 8TB SAS Seagate ST8000NM0075
• 5x 8TB SATA Seagate ST8000AS0002-1NA
• 1x 8TB SATA Seagate ST8000AS0003-2HH

When I tried to replace the next 8TB SATA drive in bay 2 with another 16TB SAS Seagate ST16000NM002G, the new disk did not show up, neither in the Smart Storage Administrator, nor in the controller’s bootup options. When I insert the disk, the circular LED in the caddy keeps spinning. I had the disk in the bay for a couple of days and the LED kept spinning but the disk was not recognized.

Following a guide I found on the HPE support pages, I tried a number of things:

• I used different caddies for the 16TB drive
• I replaced the 12 LFF drive backplane
• I replaced the original Smart Array P822 with a Smart Array P830
• With the controller replacement the cable has been replaced as well, as the P830 does not have the 4 channel SAS connectors but the double wide 8 channel SAS connectors.
• A seller accidentally had sent me the 16TB SATA version of the Seagate first and it wasn’t recognized either. I returned it, as I had ordered the SAS version. But when the SAS version from another seller had arrived, it wasn’t recognized either. So it is very unlikely that both drives are/were faulty.
• I briefly inserted a 2TB Seagate Constellation SATA drive and have, for the time being, reinserted the 8TB Seagate Archive drive, which both have been recognized just fine on the port in question.
• All components have the most recent firmware, i.e. the Gen8 backplane is on ver. 3.3, the P830 is on ver. 5.02 and the P822 was/is on ver. 8.32. The drives are on the most recent firmware as well, at least there are no updates available when I search for an update, using the serial number on Seagate's support page. All the 16TB drives, including the new one, show the same FW version on their label.
• I also ran Insight Diagnostics, but it simply does not show that there is a disk in bay 2. It's not recognized, so there is no diagnose on the "non existent drive" either.

So I have replaced everything in the chain, but the Smart Array controllers don’t recognize another 16TB drive.

The dozen drives in the front cage are all individually configured as a RAID 0, the two 8TB SAS drives in the back as a RAID 1. I doubt, however, that this has any bearing on the drive recognition issue I am experiencing. Data loss protection is provided by SnapRAID, two of the working 16TB drives (bays 11&12) are configured as parity drives.

Unfortunetely I don't have another server/desktop at my disposal where I could test the new 16TB SAS drive indvidually. I have ordered a SAS USB3.0 dock in China, but that probably will take some time to arrive.

Do the Gen8 controllers or the Gen8 backplane have a maximum total storage volume they can handle? I am currently at 160TB, with the new drive I would be at 168 TB. Unfortunately, I was not able to find documentation or a white paper on the Gen8 backplane and the DL380e Gen8 was probably never available from HPE with 16TB drives...

Any thoughts what could be done to resolve my drive recognition issue?

Thanks!

Markus

[sudhirsingh]

@Markus Vollmer,

It seems like it has reached the maximum storage capacity.

Maximum storage capacity mentioned in the server quickspecs(56TB) is way to low compare to what to have,[Likely there were no 8/16TB drives available]

https://www.hpe.com/psnow/doc/c04128166?jumpid=in_lit-psnow-red

Suggestion

Disconnect one of the 8T rear drive and then install 16TB in bay2 and check.

also for further upgrade, you can choose to add external disk enclosure option D2700 (incase you want to upgrade further capacity)

Regards,

Sudhir