Server will not read HDD

[saladin2]

We have a Dell Poweredge T610 here that we are trying to turn into a backup box as it has 8 drive bays on the front. We have tried inserting multiple drives into the front bays, but neither the BIOS or RAID manager will see these drives.

 

[popatim]

You need to determine which controller the HDD backplane is connected to. The T610 shold have a single SAS connector on the back of it with the cable running to the controller.

If this is used server, I would not be surprised if they removed the Perc controller card and cable from the system before selling it.

If you do have a controller card, which one is it. Also which HDD's have you tried?

 

[saladin2]

You need to determine which controller the HDD backplane is connected to. The T610 shold have a single SAS connector on the back of it with the cable running to the controller.

If this is used server, I would not be surprised if they removed the Perc controller card and cable from the system before selling it.

If you do have a controller card, which one is it. Also which HDD's have you tried?

Yes there is 2 SAS connectors on the HDD back pane, one for each set of 4 HDD.
Both SAS connectors go to a separate RAID Card, with no obvious model number. The only thing it has written on it is; E2K-UCP-61-(B) and Class B ICES-003

We have tried both SAS and multiple SATA drives. SAS seem to be read in the RAID config whereas no SATAS are read.

 

[popatim]

Those are Perc 6i's. Sata drives should work but the 6i has a size limit of 2tb because its an older card. You should be able to see them in the Perc raid manager but will not be able to raid them with anything other then another sata drive. They also need to be on the same controller. Once you create a raid array with them, the controller will pass the virtual drive over to windows and you will see it in diskmanagement.

 

[saladin2]

Those are Perc 6i's. Sata drives should work but the 6i has a size limit of 2tb because its an older card. You should be able to see them in the Perc raid manager but will not be able to raid them with anything other then another sata drive. They also need to be on the same controller. Once you create a raid array with them, the controller will pass the virtual drive over to windows and you will see it in diskmanagement.

Great, thanks for your help. It has become clear to me that the original purpose we had for this Server is not applicable. As we need to raid any drives in order to read them through windows.

 

[popatim]

If I remember right, you can pass a single drive thru by making the one drive its own raid 0. It just seems odd to make a raid0 array with just one drive. LoL

 

[popatim]

Also, you may be able to just swap in another controller and matching cable. Something like the M1015 that has been flashed to IT mode (works like a regular drive controller - no raid or jbod. each drive is separate) and an 8087 (m1015 end) to whatever the backplane needs (possibly 8484 that the perc6 uses) from amazon.