Weird Problem

[nitrobass24]

So I have bought 2 WD3000BLFS vRaptors
I have a Supermicro 8x2.5 Hotswap Cage SAS/SATA

The vRaptors dont work in the hotswap unit

I hooked the raptors up to the same RAID Card with an extra cable I had and they work...and pass diags

I unplugged the hotswap cage and hooked the vRaptors up to the Supermicro cable that came with the hotswap cage....no worky.
So I thought to myself for a min and thought well maybe the cable is bad so I grabbed another one of those supermicro cables from another hotswap unit I have and it still didnt work.


WTF gives?
How could the cable for these cages make certain drives not work? I have two of these and they work great with other drives just not these?

Anyone have any insight?

 

[nitrobass24]

anybody?

 

[alamone]

Cable length? This is the only thing I can think of.
How long is that Supermicro cable vs the cable that worked?
I assume you're talking about a HBA to sataX4 breakout cable.

SATA operates at lower signaling voltages than SAS,
so it can't be driven on cables as long as SAS can.
SATA is reliable to about 1M, SAS can go up to 10M I believe.
So, if the cable's too long, maybe the data signals from
the vraptor sata port aren't reaching the RAID card.

If the cable lengths are the same... not sure what else it could be.
If it was in the backplane, maybe its something to do with mixing
SAS/SATA drives in the same backplane but since you tested it outside
of the backplane that's probably not it.

Lemme know if you find out what it is.

 

[nitrobass24]

Yea ive been working with supermicro on the issue and they have no idea either.

Kind of strange

 

[Lazn_Work]

Are they making connection at the back of the hotswap bay? Does the RAID card see them at all?

 

[nitrobass24]

Yea the RAID card can see the drives when im not using a supermicro cable
but even if I just hook up the drives without the hotswap cage and just the supermicro cable it wont work.