[rescue] Can a drive from an EMC be used an a SunBlade

Curtis H. Wilbar Jr. rescue at hawkmountain.net
Sat Nov 21 08:07:28 CST 2009


Jonathan Sturges wrote:
>> Message: 3
>>     
>
>   
>> Date: Fri, 13 Nov 2009 20:44:03 -0500
>> From: "Curtis H. Wilbar Jr." 
>> To: The Rescue List 
>> Subject: Re: [rescue] Can a drive from an EMC be used an a SunBlade
>> Message-ID: <4AFE0B63.1000803 at hawkmountain.net>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>>
>> Andrew Jones wrote:
>>     
>>> On Thu, Nov 12, 2009 at 11:52:49PM -0500, Curtis H. Wilbar Jr. wrote:
>>>  
>>>       
>>>> As a word of warning.... beware FC drives that say '12V only' (as does the
>>>> one I have).  Not sure if the V at the end of the Seagate # indicates 
>>>> the 12V
>>>> only, or not... so I can't say all ST3146807FCV will not work in Sun... but
>>>> the story on these is that EMC had the drive 'reworked' to run 12V only
>>>> instead of the usual 5/12V.  It has a big '12V Only' on it.
>>>>
>>>> From my internet searches... (number one search response is sites selling
>>>> these), they would appear to work in nothing other than the system they
>>>> were intended to go in.
>>>>    
>>>>         
>>> Is there any reason you couldn't simply sever the 5v line? does it require a 
>>>       
>> proprietary power connector?
>>     
>>>  
>>>       
>> Well, FC drives are similar to SCA SCSI Drives.... all functions on one 
>> connector, and
>> the drive is intended to go into a backplane.  So, any modification of 
>> the system would
>> involve an alteration of the FC backplane in my SunBlade 2000... which 
>> is not something
>> I'd want to do.... then there is the issue of is the 5V to be left 
>> unconnected, or is 12V to
>> be send on the pins where 5V normally would be ?
>>
>> It may not even be the '12V only' 'feature' of the drive causing my 
>> problem... the drive
>> did spin up.... so it could be a defective drive or something else 
>> unique to these EMC
>> drives ?????  The only thing I found online was on an SGI forum (IIRC) 
>> and they pointed
>> to the 12V only being the issue.
>>
>> -- Curt
>>     
>
> I have some more information on this.  The "12v only" drives are indeed just that:  they only draw from the 12v pins of the FC connector.
>
> I recently acquired 4 146GB EMC/Clariion drives, all are "12v only."  All 4 are Seagate Cheetahs, but 2 are older and 2 are newer.  I had no troubles with the older Cheetahs in an FC MultiPack; however, the newer Cheetahs won't spin up at all.  The only difference I can spot is the newer Cheetahs (ST3146707FCV) draw 12v at 1.6A, while the older ones (ST3146807FCV) draw a little less:  12v at 1.4A.  It's possible that both newer Cheetahs are bad, I suppose, though I tend to think that's unlikely.  
>   

The one I tried says 1.4A.  It does spin up... but with it in no FC 
devices are
seen (even the 1 good drive).  Even plugged in alone, no devices are seen.
Maybe this one drive was bad (it is used).  Maybe I should ask the seller I
purchased this from if I can try an exchange ?  I just don't want to pay for
shipping only to find out the next one won't work either.  (I'd rather 
put that
money into regular drives instead of 'EMC specials').

-- Curt


> Also, regarding re-formatting these drives back to 512 bytes/sector.  While 'scu' for Linux works well, it is a bit old.  There is a newer, currently-supported package called "sg3_utils" that has similar capabilities, and is included in Fedora (and probably most other distros).  With sg3_utils installed, a simple 'sg_format --format --size=512 /dev/sdX' will take care of the sector-size change and low-level format.
>
> -Jonathan
> _______________________________________________
> rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue



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