Force Hitachi 7k3000 to Sata II or Sata I?

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fields_g

Weaksauce
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Apr 9, 2011
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After asking our vendor if Hitachi 2Tb drives with 512 sectors would work in their fiberchannel array, and getting an affirmative answer, we ordered 20 2Tb Hitachi 7k3000 drives. After installing them, all the devices listed as "not found". After contacting support and upgrading to the newest firmware, we still had the same problem.

It was forwarded onto other techs that said the problem was that they were SATA III drives and that the device would only support SATA II drives. Would like to know if anyone had luck forcing Hitachi 7k3000 drives to a lower SATA mode. Thanks.

Edit: The unit is a Rorke Data - Galaxy HDX2 (16bay, dual controller).
 
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What FC enclosure is this? 6Gb/s drives should automatically negotiate down as far as 1.5 if needed. Many enterprise enclosures (Dell, HP, EMC, NetApp etc) are locked to work with only their drives and will not recognize any others.
 
previous post is on the money. either the person that answered yes to Hitachi 2Tb's drive working was a junk answer (and if what you wrote is literally what was asked of them then the question was too vague since they might have assumed Hitachi enterprise SAS drives, some of which supports 512/520/528 sectors).. or the techs sounding off about SATA-II only was a junk answer.

thats why in the end things really come down to your own testing when a vendor waffles like that and dont want to admit not knowing the answer.
 
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This is exactly what I thought also. Never actually experienced drives/controllers not negotiating a usable speed correctly. There are mux boards involved, but still....

The unit is a Rorke Data - Galaxy HDX2 (16bay, dual controller). It was originally shipped with Western Digital RE2 500gb SATA drives. No SAS currently involved.
 
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So back to the original question... For diagnostic purposes, anyone have ideas on how one might force SATA II speeds on these drives?
 
You can't. Auto-negotiation is a feature of the SATA controllers on the drive and controller. Some drives had jumpers which could set it. What are the exact model numbers of the drives you bought? Unfortunatley, all the 7K3000s just have one jumper block, and it is just used for power-up standby mode. Did you just pull some old drives off their carriers (or canisters as Rorke calls them) and slap the new ones in their place? One last question, was this box used in either an Avid system or in one of the Avnet healthcare boxes?
 
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Bought 20, 16 for the array, 4 spares (currently directly attached to servers for data migration purposes). No avanet healthcare or avid... Just a ATTO fibre channel card in a Dell R710, used for storage of media files from a Bline patient simulator system.
 
fields_g said:
Bought 20, 16 for the array, 4 spares (currently directly attached to servers for data migration purposes). No avanet healthcare or avid... Just a ATTO fibre channel card in a Dell R710, used for storage of media files from a Bline patient simulator system.
Click to expand...

At this point you really need to go back to whoever guaranteed you these drives would work and take it up with them. It is very common for enterprise storage vendors in general to lock their enclosures to only their drives (and in some cases only certain of those manufacturers drives for certain enclosures).
 
Thanks. Really appreciate someone taking the time to look the situation over (unfortunately coming to the same conclusion).
 
I am sorry you got into this situation and hope you get made whole on it but if you're ever not sure just buy 1 and test it first.
 
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