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Harddrive orientation

D

dextr3k

Gawd
Joined
Aug 3, 2004
Messages
550
Hi All,

I have a weird situation. I have a homemade Freenas Server. It has a drive that is going bad (kept dropping, and only reboot would fix).

So I decided to move it to a cooler area, and as a result, turned the tower on its side for better ventilation. However, Once this happened, the drive completely dropped, and upon further inspection, it was clicking, no reboots would make it even register, it does not showup in bios etc.

OK, so getting ready for a warranty swap....and it 100% passed seagate diagonistics. :confused: There were no errors, complete 15 hour stress test and monitoring, it is completely fine. So I installed it back into the server for resilvering, and....it drops almost immediately. So I took it out of the case, and its running flat, on top of the case, and everything seems fine. No drops, no scrub errors, not Smart errors, nothing. Uh......Whats going on? I cant warranty it because it doesnt throw diagonistic error, and I cant put it back into the case because....well it doesnt work on its side.
 
(1) re-orientate it so that its vertical (wedge something either side) but make sure its got adequate airflow and try the diagnostics again.

(2) if it passes put it back into the case but swap its cable around with another drives and see which one fails this time.

Cheers
 
Mechanical defects are not always reflected in SMART data.
Also, 3,5" drives do not like to be moved around during operation. There is quite some energy stored in rotating platters and turning them causes a not insignificant torque perpendicular to bearing axis.

But regarding what you described, I would say that you should check the power and SATA connection. Replace cables, use a different power connector prom PSU, different SATA port on mainboard, different PSU. This sounds more likely than a harddrive defect for your case.
 
Yeah, I know I cant move it on its side, this was all done with the machine powered down. The power and sata connectors have been changed, but...I didnt try new psu or different sata port.

The thing is the same power and sata port, work when it is lying flat, only on its side does it 'click' and fail. I find it very weird. I will have to keep an eye on it more.

Thanks guys.
 
The drive is definitely going bad. Something has worn enough in the drive to take it out of specs and cause it to not work properly.

I have a WD Black 500GB drive that does the same exact thing you are describing.

It kept dropping out of the array, and then started clicking.

Once I oriented it differently, it started working again.

I tried different power cables, different SATA cables, and different SATA ports on my motherboard. The result was the same every time.

Lay it flat and it would not work.

Set it vertically and it worked just fine.
 
cyclone3d said:
The drive is definitely going bad. Something has worn enough in the drive to take it out of specs and cause it to not work properly.

I have a WD Black 500GB drive that does the same exact thing you are describing.

It kept dropping out of the array, and then started clicking.

Once I oriented it differently, it started working again.

I tried different power cables, different SATA cables, and different SATA ports on my motherboard. The result was the same every time.

Lay it flat and it would not work.

Set it vertically and it worked just fine.
Click to expand...

Hehe, yeah, it is opposite with me, vertical it clicks, flat its been running completely fine. The bummer is that its not throwing errors in seagate's utility, so I cant warranty.
 
dextr3k said:
Hehe, yeah, it is opposite with me, vertical it clicks, flat its been running completely fine. The bummer is that its not throwing errors in seagate's utility, so I cant warranty.
Click to expand...

Sure you can. There should be an option on the RMA page that lets you put in something without a code.. like if the drive won't even detect.

No way to get a code from Seatools if the drive won't even detect.
 
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