My HDD and HBA issue, plz help me!

[Albert Yang]

My platform:
ITX MB with 4 SATA port, Highpoint 2640x1 HBA card with v1.3 firmware, 8G RAM, 200W power supply.
4X Hitachi 3T disks; 4X Seagate 4T disks. 3T disk requires V12-0.85A, V5-0.45A; 4T disk requires V12-0.55A, V5-0.55A power supply.

Before this month, there were only 4*3T disks connect to motherboard directly in my platform and ran well.

Then, one disk did not work well. I took the "bad" one to another mechine, it worked and seemed no problem. I took it back and sometimes it worked.

And I add 4*4T disks to the system and connect them to the 2640x1 HBA.

Now there are my problems:
1. Why sometimes I lost one 3T disk?
2. Sometimes my HBA can find 2 disks, sometimes it find 3 disks, but till now, never find total 4disks, why?
3. When FreeNAS boot, it listed all the founded disks. But when I try to config on WebGUI, it only shows the disks connect to MB. All the disks connect to HBA is not shown. Is it means I need to add HBA driver?
4. The un-work 4T disk has 1Hz sound like "do...do...". Is it means power supply issue?

Please help me, thank you in advance!

 

[jgreco]

200W for such a system is probably too small. You can do permanent damage to drives by underpowering your system.

 

[Albert Yang]

I calculated the power consumption of 8HDDs. It seems 200W power can support such system. Anyway, if it confirms a power supply problem, I will buy a bigger one.

But I mount 4*4T disks to another system with 600W power. It also has problem, just found 3 disks.

 

[jgreco]

Most drives require 2A at 12VDC to spin, 8 drives times two amps times 12V is 192 watts, so as long as your system has no fans and only takes 8 watts you're in great shape.

But in reality your 200W supply will not have 16 amps on the 12V supply so that's all ridiculous talk anyways.

 

[Albert Yang]

Hi Jgreco, thank you for your support. Merry Christmas!

The label on the supply shows it have 15A on 12V. And the label on HDD shows no more than 1A on 12V. My question is, if it is 12V issue, why it doesn't work on my 600W supply?

Maybe I should try it again.

PS: for the HBA, should I add driver so that it could work properly? I don't know how to install HBA driver on FreeNAS system. Should I move to PCBSD?

 

[jgreco]

Give me the model numbers of the hard drives. I am not aware of any common 3.5" hard drives that spin on less than much less than 2 amps. You say

4X Seagate 4T disks. [...] 4T disk requires V12-0.55A,

The primary Seagate 4TB model at this time is the ST4000DM000; its start current is 2.0 amps on the 12 volt. See http://www.seagate.com/www-content/...cs/desktop-hdd-data-sheet-ds1770-1-1212gb.pdf

As for why it won't work on the 600W supply, it is perfectly likely that your previous attempts to overload your 200W supply resulted in damage to some of the drives; your system needs to be rebuilt with a properly sized supply, and then tested bit by bit in order to identify any obvious damage. Sadly, you may still miss more subtle damage that will result in shortened hardware lifecycle. This has the potential to be an extremely expensive lesson in why it is bad to cheap out on power supplies.

I don't know anything about the Highpoint HBA you're using, so I quite simply cannot comment much on it. I believe there's a Highpoint sticky around here somewhere written by someone with experience with those controllers. It may require a driver, a tweak, or may just be incompatible. But

 

[jgreco]

Oh, and, if you stress out a small supply long enough, it is entirely likely that it will begin to fail and not be able to deliver its rated current. You say before adding drives that

Then, one disk did not work well. I took the "bad" one to another mechine, it worked and seemed no problem. I took it back and sometimes it worked.

This is entirely consistent with the behaviour of a failing supply; reduced power causes some bits being powered to randomly fail. You then heaped a bunch more load on the supply, and then claim

Sometimes my HBA can find 2 disks, sometimes it find 3 disks, but till now, never find total 4disks, why?

The answer "because there's not enough power for them all; some of them are starving" comes to mind. So YOUR OWN STORY strongly supports my theory that you have stressed out your 200W supply. Under no circumstances should you use that supply for anything you value. It may go shockingly wrong at any time. Bite the bullet and get a nice 500W supply with enough 12V amps to spin at least 50% more drives than you have.

 

[Albert Yang]

Thank you Jgreco. I've ordered a 400W power supply with 20A V12 last night. Hope it works this time. I'll get it this weekend and try it then.

 

[Albert Yang]

If I can see you suggestion a little earlier, I'll order a 500W power. My new 400W power has total 300W V12 power. Hope it could work well.

 

[titan_rw]

You can do permanent damage to drives by underpowering your system.

I've experienced this myself.

I had a too small power supply in one of my desktop pc's quite a few years ago. I lost 4 out of the 5 hard drives one day. They refused to spin up. I'm 95% sure this was the fault of the PS.

I got a proper sized PS, RMA'd the bad drives, and never had another problem.