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Anyone having problems with Seagate 8TB archive drive?


Nerva

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I run both StableBit Scanner and Drivepool on my home server.   It already has two 4TB Seagate drives, but when I tried adding one of Seagate's new 8TB "archive" drives, I get nothing but problems initializing it.   I've tried connecting to drive both directly to the ASUS E35M-1M Pro motherboard and also to the SYBA SYBA SI-PEX40064 controller that the 4TB drives use -- Windows Disk Management and Stablebit Scanner both report the former configuration is a 3.86 GB drive while the latter configuration is reported as 128 GB, instead of 8TB.

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I have 5 of these drives, and the only issues I've had is that one arrive DOA (my first DOA drive, actually).

 

However, specs on the SYBA card indicates it only supports up to 4TB drives:

http://www.sybausa.com/productInfo.php?iid=1376

 

And I can't find enough information about the motherboard chipset, aside from that it's using the A50 chipset, and it's a mobile chipset, actually.

 

Aside from that, it sounds like this is a compatibility issue here. 



Do you have a USB enclosure you can test?  If so, try that and see if you get better results.

Otherwise, you may want to return the drive and get a smaller capacity, or invest in a different controller cards. (Or contact Syba and see if the have a fix for the issue).

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Also, have you tried seeing if there is updated drivers for the system? 

Mmm... That's a 50/50 chance there, Chris.

 

 

If the board is an older model, pre- 2012, you may run into some trouble with larger sized drives.

 

Do you have a Linux Distro you can look at the drive with?

 

When I played with the 8TB/10TB drives, I ran into Windows wanting to configure them as NTFS and not GPT.

 

@ OP

 

Below I quoted Chris in regards to your Card only supporting 4TB maximum. Try this...

 

Insert your drive directly to your Mobo.

Load up Disk Management

Post a screenshot of your disk management page.

 

You may have to format it as 2x 4TB Drives, which is obnoxious, I know.

 

I have 5 of these drives, and the only issues I've had is that one arrive DOA (my first DOA drive, actually).

 

However, specs on the SYBA card indicates it only supports up to 4TB drives:

http://www.sybausa.com/productInfo.php?iid=1376

 

And I can't find enough information about the motherboard chipset, aside from that it's using the A50 chipset, and it's a mobile chipset, actually.

 

Aside from that, it sounds like this is a compatibility issue here. 

 

Do you have a USB enclosure you can test?  If so, try that and see if you get better results.

Otherwise, you may want to return the drive and get a smaller capacity, or invest in a different controller cards. (Or contact Syba and see if the have a fix for the issue).

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I contacted both SYBA and AMD regarding drivers -- SYBA was very responsive but they said they are at the mercy of getting drivers from Marvell, who makes their chipset -- and Marvell does not have end-user tech support to contact.   AMD's response was terse, broken English that seemed to tell me to contact ASUS for a driver -- I shot back that all ASUS does is put their logo on AMD's driver installer -- I'm supposed to ask ASUS to ask AMD to update their chipset driver??

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Mmm... That's a 50/50 chance there, Chris.

 

 

If the board is an older model, pre- 2012, you may run into some trouble with larger sized drives.

 

Do you have a Linux Distro you can look at the drive with?

 

When I played with the 8TB/10TB drives, I ran into Windows wanting to configure them as NTFS and not GPT.

 

@ OP

 

Below I quoted Chris in regards to your Card only supporting 4TB maximum. Try this...

 

Insert your drive directly to your Mobo.

Load up Disk Management

Post a screenshot of your disk management page.

 

You may have to format it as 2x 4TB Drives, which is obnoxious, I know.

 

I'm not 100% sure, but I'm guessing that the drive doesn't show up as the full 8TBs in Disk Management. That it shouls up as the smaller size, or not at all.

 

This is because the driver/controller is not capable of addressing the entire disk. 

No amount of formatting or partitioning is going to help here.

 

 

Also, just to clarify, GPT is the partitioning scheme, and it's older counterpart is MBR.  The disk is initialized as one or the other.

However, you can format the partitions as NTFS, ReFS, Fat, exFAT, etc.  

 

But if the drive isn't showing the proper size to start with, it doesn't matter if it's MBR or GPT, or formatted with NTFS or something else. 

 

And if you look at Nerva's (Op) post, he indicates that disk manager shows an incorrect size for the drive. So, yeah, it's DEFINITELY the driver or controller that is at fault here.

 

I contacted both SYBA and AMD regarding drivers -- SYBA was very responsive but they said they are at the mercy of getting drivers from Marvell, who makes their chipset -- and Marvell does not have end-user tech support to contact.   AMD's response was terse, broken English that seemed to tell me to contact ASUS for a driver -- I shot back that all ASUS does is put their logo on AMD's driver installer -- I'm supposed to ask ASUS to ask AMD to update their chipset driver??

 

I'm not surprised by this at all.  

 

Most of the companies selling controller cards are like this. They're at the mercy of the chipset manufacturer, unless they're willing to reprogram and flash custom firmware into the chipsets (HighPoint does this for their cards, actually). 

 

And as for AMD.... that's truly disappointing. 

 

 

 

If yo uwant a specific recommendation for a replacement card.... well, I'd really recommend going with higher end (aka enterprise) stuff, as these are much more likely to work.  The IBM ServeRAID M1015/M1115 that is mentioned is great if you're cheap and don't mind flashing the firmware (and like all firmware updates, you do risk bricking the card, especially in this case). 

Otherwise, if you want to buy a new card that will "just work", then I'd recommend something like this:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0085FT2JC/

 

It's pricy, yes. But if you check the "New" section, there are a number of sellers that are selling it for around $160-170. You'd also need to get "breakout cables" as well (which amazon links), but you can immediately hook up 8 drives with this card.

 

 

And the card has great expansion capability (it supports up to 256 drives, with the right "secondary" hardware). 

 

 

 

Aside from that, it very much depends on the chipset you find. 

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Thanks for the info -- I plan on building a new server "correctly" someday, but at the moment I am unemployed and so I can't afford anything besides hooking a new drive up to my current hardware.   I may have to return the 8TB drive and just buy a 6TB, since those should work with the SYBA controller.

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Thanks for the info -- I plan on building a new server "correctly" someday, but at the moment I am unemployed and so I can't afford anything besides hooking a new drive up to my current hardware.   I may have to return the 8TB drive and just buy a 6TB, since those should work with the SYBA controller.

You're very welcome for the info!

 

And I'm sorry to hear about your employment situation, as I'm sure that sucks (if only because it makes buying "toys" hard, at best).

 

And yes, it may be best to return the 8TB drive for something you're sure will work (i'd recommend a 4TB here, honestly). It's no use if it doesn't work. :(

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