hansolo77

And another day goes by without any response. I have a very small window of 10 days to get the RMA processed and the item returned before they will no longer accept it. This is insane. I decided to forward the same email with an appendum to the original, indicating the time that has passed without response, as well as links to their own official "rules". I've also sent it to the 3 addresses I know about: info@ipcdirect.net , service@norcotek.com , sales@norcotek.com. With any luck they'll promptly respond. If not, I'll investigate their company's hierarchy and attempt to locate more emails to send additional forwards too. Here's the latest: ------------------------ As of right now, 22 hours have passed with no response to this inquiry. This is my 2nd attempt to get this resolved, included is my original complaint which has images showing proof of my issues. I am trying to adhere strictly to your RMA guidelines, section 3 subsection II: Warranty Policy | Norco Technologies Inc. "Missing Parts / DOA (Dead on Arrival) Claims for incomplete or missing accessories, or damages must be made within 10 days from receipt of the good(s). DOA units must be reported to NORCO within 30 calendar days upon receipt or the product will be considered accepted with no dispute. All returns being identified as modified by customer entitles no credit or refund." I'm also adhering to your "Return Policy", 1st condition: Store Policies "All returns must be accompanied by a RMA number.You may request an RMA by email to info@iPCDIRECT.net" If no attempt by your company is made to rectify this matter within the allowed time, further action will be taken. I'm not one to make threats, but your company's history with a lot of online users suggests it is the only way to get things done. I do not want to take legal action, but if you falsely advertise these things, I'm well within my rights. Please escalate this matter to whomever is chiefly responsible for resolving these matters. Thank you! -Aaron ----- Forwarded Message -----

What a bunch of BS... So I got my "replacement" backplane in the mail today. The same white residue exists on all of the soldered connections for the MOLEX power and LEDs. It's also missing all of the pins to the 1st MOLEX power plug, which means no backup power supply capabilities. And to top it all off, the SAS connector is broken, preventing me from properly inserting and locking in the connector. I'm furious right now. I'm attempting to RMA it, but I imagine it will go unanswered as well. They have a "Store Policy" web page that indicates RMA is capable, but it requires emailing them and asking for it. http://www.ipcdirect.net/store-policies/ I've had NO return emails from them since I first bought their case. I had to ORDER replacement screws just so I could mount my hard drives, and only then did they bother to email me asking what size I needed. They wouldn't just send me out some for free because it didn't come with any. I now have to send this POS (technical term ) back to them and wait even longer to get a replacement. They'll probably turn around and try to charge me again to send it to them and to send it back, plus a "restocking fee". If anybody out there is reading this and thinking about getting a NORCO case because they're cheap, my recommendation is DON'T. Please don't give this company any more money. They're worse than worthless. Here's my email to them, complete with a link to photos for proof.. -------------------------------------------------------- I just received my order (#783). A replacement backplane for a faulty backplane in my Norco RPC-4224. I was excited to see it had arrived, given that the USPS website hadn't shown any movement for days. When I opened it, I looked over the product. I'm extremely unsatisfied in the quality of it. First of all, it's completely missing the pins for the 1st MOLEX power plug. How am I supposed to connect a backup power supply to this without any pins? Secondly, the SAS connector is broken on the inside. I can't plug my cable into the port. I gave it the benefit of a doubt though, and tried connecting a spare reverse breakout cable to it. After some work, I managed to get it plugged in, but only 2 out of 4 drives connected could be detected. I'm very unhappy with this. I would request a refund, but I need the product. Can you please provide me with an RMA number and a replacement product ASAP?! Pictures are attached and linked here: http://imageupper.com/g/?S020001008Q1488503057225783 I feel I should mention that this company's value to me is horrible. You sell really poor quality products. You offer absolutely no support. I submit emails requesting information prior to buying and it goes ignored. I shouldn't even have to pay to get replacement parts of a product you should be standing behind. My ORIGINAL backplane was faulty from day one, but I couldn't get it replaced for free, that's was my first indication this is a bad company. Now my replacement is just as bad, if not worse, and you're probably going to charge me to send it back to you, and charge me again to send another replacement. That's just not right. I refuse to pay returning shipping and restock charges. I demand that this get replaced with properly tested and working QUALITY merchandise, or I will take this to a higher authority. This is ridiculous. A very unhappy customer... -Aaron

I did actually try something like that. I haven't checked #6 yet, but since I have #3 pulled I tested it much more thoroughly. I tested the backplane by attaching drives to it without having it installed the case. Used WORKING moxex power plugs (from #1) and tried it in both the regular and the backup connectors. It looks like it powers on ok. The lights and everything come on indicating a good connection. It's just the data side that's not working. I tested both SAS and reverse breakout on it. No combination of cabling would make the drives become detected in either the BIOS or in the LSI controller's setup utility. On a whim, I also tested each drive that is typically connected to that backplane directly with standard SATA, and each one works like it should. I checked all of the capacitors, resisiters, etc. Everything looks good aside from that weird looking white stuff around the LED and power solder connections. The SAS connector looks perfect.

Here's my latest development: Just for kicks, I decided to try Backplane #6 one more time using a KNOWN working SAS cable (from #1). Still wouldn't detect anything. I then tried using a reverse breakout cable connected to #6 and then directly to my motherboard. Nothing detected. I thought maybe I had the wrong cable, so just as a test, I connected it to Backplane #1 (that I know works). It detected those drives fine. So I knew I had the right cable. I reconnected the breakout to #6, but this time swapped out a drive from #1 to see if that WORKING drive would be detected. It was not detected. I then put the drive that WAS on #6 into the available slot on #1 to see if the SAS controller would detect the drive in there. It did. So to me, this process of elimination proves that Backplane #6 has also failed now, and not the drives. Did I miss anything? To recap: [NON-DETECT] Connect Backplane #1 SAS cable to #6 [NON-DETECT] Connect Reverse Breakout to #6 and Mobo [DETECT] Connect Reverse Breakout to #1 and Mobo [NON-DETECT] Reverse Breakout to #6, Swap working drive in #1 to #6 [DETECT] Swap non-detected drive from #6 to #1 Is there anything else I can do or try to make sure it's definitely the backplane and not something else like a bad cable?

Good call. You're right, it will take a long time, but it would definitely eliminate all possible causes. It was late last night. I was just getting overly frustrated. I thought it would be a quick simple fix to just plug in the new expander and everything would be back to working like it was before. Oh well, guess there's still work to do.

EPIC GRR!!! The more I mess around with this, the more I break it. So I received the replacement expander card (much thanks!). I'm sure it works fine. I have "most" of the drives working. 2 entire backplanes, however, are completely unresponsive. I can sometimes get one of the drives in rail 3 to detect, but then after a reboot to try and fix another one, it too drops. Backplane #3 is just a total loss. I've ordered a replacement and actually got a reply from one of their sales reps asking for a photo of the backplane so they can send me the correct replacement. Upon doing so, I found a bunch of what appeared to be poor soldering and bad rosin removal. Hopefully it's just superficial, but it would definitely help to explain why I've always had trouble with this particular backplane. Photos here! Now in my (vain) attempt to get more drives working, it looks like Backplane #6 has gone kaput too. When I initially got this replacement expander and had everything hooked up, I'm pretty sure it detected the 2 drives on that rail. Now I can't see anything. I've tried swapping the ends of the SAS cable, and now (since I've pulled the card) I've also swapped the cable with the one from #3. No dice. To make matters worse, it looks like now drives in bay's 3 and 4 of Rail #1 (the top) aren't being detected either! These aren't even connecting to the expander, they're all connected directly to the controller! I have no idea what's going on. Chris thinks maybe my stupid trick of plugging the card in when the system was on may have traced back to the controller too. If that's the case, I'm SOL. I can't afford to buy replacement stuff. This whole venture seems to be a total bust. I hate my life, I hit this stupid machine. I hate that there are genius's out there with the knowledge to just look at my problem and fix it, but I can't figure it out myself. I mean, if money was no issue, I'd replace all 6 backplanes, buy a brand new (instead of used) controller and expander card. Hell, I'd start completely over. But that's not the case. I'm limited to band aid fixes and fingers crossed and hopes and prayers. I just can't believe that this one little thing (computer locking up causing a hard cold restart) is causing all these problems. I need to just give up and find a new hobby.

Never updated.. Amazon was successful in canceling the order and the charge never fully went though on my bank. Took a few days after the fact, but it did eventually clear. After learning of the SAS1 vs SAS2 bit, Chris was (thankfully!) willing to offer up his old no longer used Intel SAS expander. It's on it's way now, should have it by Friday. I'll post up an update on how the installation goes. I don't anticipate any issues, as it has compatibility to work via PCIe slot OR molex power. Fingers Crossed!

Amazon sent me a confirmation today that the order has been successfully cancelled. However, my bank shows a pre-authorization charge in place. Once that clears out, I'll move on with a better option. Stay tuned!

Well, prior to going to the dentist and my HP card crapping out on me, I had emailed them. I think it was like the 2nd week of January. I never heard from them. Then I remember sending them another email 10 days later, and even sending them a PM on Facebook. Still nothing. That's why I asked. Well, thanks to your PM Chris, I think the HP card I ordered from Amazon is a no-go. I just sent them an email asking to cancel it. I ordered it on Friday, and it still shows it haven't even finished "preparing shipment". I get that it's the weekened, but UPS and stuff still run on Saturdays. Hopefully it's not ready to ship and they can cancel my order so I can go back and order a proper card. Most of my drives are now all 4TB, so your warning about SAS1 being limited to 2TB is kinda scaring me.

I think I do have another random PCIe card I can try. Too bad I didn't realize it till you said something. It's a video card, hopefully it's not AGP and I'm just remembering wrong. It'll have to wait though. It's too late to mess with it more tonight. And it't not a priority since it would just be for testing. Does anybody know if Norco is still in business? I never ordered that replacement backplane, and all my email attempts to get information about it are not being answered. I'd really like to know that their replacement part from IPCDIRECT (http://www.ipcdirect.net/4224-rpc-4224-sas-or-sata-to-mini-sas-storage-enclosure-backplane-bp-001/) is what I need. Specifically, I was looking to get some information as to what the switches were on the circuit board, since my current version doesn't have that. I was also wanting to know if this is their latest version, because it looks to me from various website forums that their yellow cards are older than their green ones. I just wanted to know these things before pulling that BUY trigger, and they never even bothered to reply.

I hope so too. I was really impressed there because it had been stable for months without issue. Sometimes there would be a software update and all of a sudden I had to take a moment to figure out what happened and try to fix it. But never a hardware issue. I think the root of the problem was probably the expander card was flaky. In my attempts to solve Windows not detecting it, I came to the realization that the driver that was installed (not working) was dated something like October 2016. So that driver had been working fine at least since then. Then when I "rolled back" the driver, the drives still weren't really being detected right. So I think the card might have been faulting and failing on it's own. The LSI config utility was able to detect the card and the drives connected, but it probably didn't start to have any issues until data was actually moving around on the drives through the card. Hopefully this replacement will work better. It's labeled on Amazon as NEW, so .. I mean new is new right? Fingers crossed. It's a shame I don't know anybody around here that has a similar setup that could maybe loan me their card (not even HP necessarily) just to test the PCIe slot. I suppose I could pull the controller card and move it, but I don't really want to risk damaging the controller card too if the PCIe slot was damaged. You know? Guess I just have to wait and see.

I'm hoping it's just the expander. This one was always kinda shady feeling, coming from China used, and one of the SAS clips didn't lock. I already ordered a replacement through Amazon. I wanted to go with a more recognized seller with optional return capabilities. It's listed as new $85. Not too bad considering I paid over $100 a year and a half ago for a USED one through eBay. It just sucks because I'm really crippled financially right now. I've got a savings account I've been putting back $50 a week automatically from my paycheck to try and save up for a car. Then my chipped tooth recently started really screaming at me so I went to the dentist to get it looked at. Gonna cost me almost $700 to get it rooted and then crowned, of which I had to pay 1/2 when I made the appointment, and the other half when I go this coming Thursday for the work. Now there's this server issue. I just can't catch a break. I really need a car so I can finally move out. I'm really hoping to do it this year.

Yeah I do recall seeing something about it being IR mode. And you are correct - the first row of drives in the case is connected directly to the controller card. All 4 drives are detected just fine. Originally, I could use the configuration utility (OpROM post BIOS / pre OS) to examine all the drives, and it indicated the HP Expander card as an "enclosure". Now that the card was "shorted out", it now doesn't show up at all. Strangely, the LEDs on the card still light up. I just hope I didn't damage the motherboard. If I did, it looks like I'll have to go back to square one and buy a whole new motherboard/cpu/ram/etc. Really really bummed about it.

I almost had it fixed, now I ruined it. I think I just blew up my HP SAS Expander. I was reconnecting drives one by one. Got to the third row, and it stopped detecting the connections. Like and idiot, I reached into the computer with it still running and giggled the data cable to make sure it was well seated. The card (which I never screwed back down after swapping slots) came unplugged. I then, like an even bigger idiot, automatically started to plug it back in. When I did, there was a short orange spark along the PCIe slot. Instantly the screen dropped all of the detected drives. I then, smartly, tried to power cycle the computer. Now the controller isn't detecting the expander at all. I can go into the controller's config utility, and where before it used to show the controller and the expander, now it only shows the controller. I tried swapping the expander back to it's old PCIe slot, but still nothing. I even tried switching the SAS cable from the controller to the expander, in both directions,, and still nothing. So I think I've busted the whole damn thing, and need a new card now. UHG. I'm more mad at myself now more than anything, because I pretty much had it figured out until I started messing with the cables. Damn it. F^CK.

Sounds almost exactly like mine. I'm not sure of the exact hardware of the controller though. It's one that Chris sold to me. All I know is that the Windows Server 2012 R2 driver it installs says "LSI Adapter, SAS2 2008 Falcon". Version 2.0.60.83 (Dated 5/14/2014). I'm also using the HP Expander. So I dove a little deeper last night. After restoring from a backup last night, and rolling back the driver on the HP device, the drives DO show up in a grayed out (disconnected) fashion. I tried deleting them (mentioned in the previous post) with no luck. However, this morning I checked, and it looked like I didn't have the HP card seated all the way into the slot after relocating it. So I reboot with it fully inserted. Still no luck as far as detecting them. BUT!!! I pulled one of the drives out of the bay and then reinserted it. Like magic, they all appeared in the Disk Manager! But they weren't "Online". I didn't have time to mess with it, as I was running late for work. But it looks like I'm really close to fixing it. I came home from work just now, and it's all locked up again. Before leaving for work I pulled out all the drives "half way" so I could one by one reinstall them into the case. I'm rebooting now, hopefully it just needed to be re-detected in Windows. Does that sound like a typical scenario though? That it would lose the drives until unplugging and reconnecting them? I've been a Windows user for like forever, and don't recall ever having something like that happen before. It might be something new with SAS type connections though.

Ok so I hooked up the backup drive directly, restored a backup from the day before it went down. Still no good. I had the device manager set in "show hidden devices" mode. The strange non-working HP driver showed back up. This time, rather than uninstall the driver, I did a "rollback". After doing that, all of a sudden the drives appeared in the list, but all grayed out. Their properties showed they weren't connected. So I did a reboot again, and verified the LSI driver does in fact detect them all (which it does). Another 30 minutes of boot up time, and Windows still doesn't show the drives in the device manager. I then went through and deleted (uninstalled) all the grayed out drives, and did a refresh.. Still nothing. I don't know what to do!

This is an LSI SAS2008 Falcon.. I installed the latest drivers I could find. It took forever, and gave me an error about timing out, but the driver shows it's installed. Windows is unable to detect anything newer online. The drives still don't show up in Windows though. I'm going to try a reboot (didn't do that after installing the drivers before leaving for work) and if that doesn't work, I'm going to take my backup drive out of it's bay and hook it up directly (SATA instead of through the SAS) to try and do a system restore from a day ago when it was working.

It might.. I've gone back and moved out the "lsi" named drivers from from /windows/system32. I went back through my thread and the PM's I've had with Chris and it was one of the troubleshooting steps I performed before. I'm about to leave for work myself, so when I get home I'll tackle this some more. Oh joy.

I tried moving the expander card to the adjacent slot. Stll no good. It's the wierest thing, because the LSI configuration screens show the 2 SAS cables are connected to 1) Directly Connected Devices (and shows the 4 drives it's connected to) and 2) HP SAS Expander (and the 18 drives it's connected to). So all said, the BIOS and LSI card are all detecting the 22 drives I have installed just fine. It's only when I finally get into Windows (which strangely takes almost 20 minutes to happen) that the drives are not detected inside Device Manager. It's very upsetting, having it work perfectly in one area, and not in the other.

Aaargh! Been a long time since I visited. Now the only reason I do is on a cry for help! So here I was, watching a tv show I have on my drive pool. Then all of a sudden, it stopped. I RD'd into my server to see what's up, like maybe it was rebooting or something. Everything was completely frozen. I waited a good 10 minutes for it to recover, but nothing. So I forcibly (via the power button) power cycled. Now when the system if finally loaded, Drivepool is showing ALL drives are missing. WAAAH!!! I checked the Windows Device Manager, and there is a system driver related to the HP SAS expander that failed to load. I tried rebooting, and it still fails to load. So I did what I normally do when a driver fails to load.. uninstall it and have Windows re-install it during next boot up. Problem is, it DIDN'T. I have no way to install this driver now. According to HP's drivers pages, they say this card doesn't use drivers, and is invisible to the OS. Ok fine, but when I go into the LSI config program for the controller card, it shows ALL the drives there. So what gives?!?! Little help? I'm completely lost.

Never got back to this. I've fixed the problem I was having. Not sure what was causing all the problems. By resetting everything back to default, then re-configuring the SSD Optimizer, it's working like it should.

My specific setup is to use the SSD as the drive my downloads would go to, then as needed I'd like it to move the data into the pool to make room for new data. I've reset all the file placement rules and it looks like it's working correctly. I guess it's just the balancing stuff that's got me confused.

Update... I went ahead and just bought me another SSD. So now I have 3.. the OS drive, a PVR drive for recorded TV, and a Download drive. Is there any documentation on how to setup the SSD Optimizer? What I'm going to try to do is just use this 3rd drive as location where all my stuff I download via sFTP from my Seedbox goes, then have it move the data out to the pool. This is a new feature for me, so I'm open to any help. EDIT - Doesn't seem to be working... I added the drive to the DrivePool, then configured SSD Optimizer to use that drive as an SSD and the rest as Archive. I then tried to download a file from my seedbox like always, and it is using the DrivePool as it's location rather than the SSD. It's a large file, so I've been able to watch it for an extended period. The new SSD hasn't been touched since adding it to the pool (other than adding a hidden PoolPart folder). What am I doing wrong? EDIT 2 - I looked at the File Placement/Rules tab. I've never been in here before, and didn't think I'd need to be. However, using the path structure in the left window, I went to my "downloads" folder I have in my DrivePool, and configured it to ONLY USE the SSD, and unchecked all the rest of the drives. I also told it to never use any other drives via the option checkbox. That did the trick as far as getting the SSD to be used. However, now I feel like these settings will cause the SSD Optimizer plugin to no longer work, as it won't move the data OFF that drive once it's full because I've told DrivePool to only store files in that folder on the SSD. So I'm completely lost now. Using just straight up defaults, and having SSD-O configured with the SSD as the SSD and pool drives are Archive, it seems like the plugin is being ignored. All new files are put in the Pool straight up. If I go in and configure specific file placement rules, the SSD is then used, but the automatic pool placements probably won't happen when it balances. PLEASE HELP!

Sorry I never got back to this... it looks like it cleared itself up on its own like you said. So I got another question for you... I finally got around to buying another SSD drive specifically to use for recorded TV shows. I've been having some issues with playback quality because it seems like the recording is taking place and DrivePool is writing the data to multiple drives simultaneously, causing lag and video corruptions. I decided I don't really need to keep a double copy of my TV shows I'm recording on the server since they're typically watched and erased within 24 hours. So I want to add a new drive to my system and dedicate it for use of TV recording. HOWEVER, I also know there is a way to use the SSD drive with the DrivePool so that it will act as a "loading dock" for new files and then write those files off to their more permanent drive destinations later. I have no idea how to do this. Can you give me some hints? So here's what I think I need to do.. Install the SDD. Give the SSD a specific Drive Letter so PVR software can write to it. Then in DrivePool, add this drive to the pool and some how configure it to be the NEW FILE drive. Am I correct in this progression? Or can I not utilize a single drive for both functions?

Help Help Help!!! (ok, mostly to Chris) Running Windows Server 2012 R2... doing a daily backup of my server's OS drive twice. Log on today and see a warning message that my backup drive has less than 10% free space. I'm using a single drive dedicated for server backups. So I look, and find NO means to remove old backups. I have a drive FULL of double backups dating back MONTHS. In the WHS days, it was a simple, configurable lifespan (I think for client backups too). Just tell it to keep x backups for y number of days/weeks/months. I don't see ANYTHING like that for the server backup in this OS (with Server Essentials). Any ideas on how to fix this? I clearly don't need 2 backups every day for the last 8 months lol.