0

I'm used to have a LSI MegaRAID Controller with 2 SSDs and 8 Western Digital HDDs. Recently I decided to add another 8 Western Digital HDDs - all 8 TB each - to create a new RAID 5 array. I hot-plugged the drives and checked the S.M.A.R.T status of the new drives using megacli.

After that I tried to build the new RAID 5

megacli -CfgLdAdd -r0 "[$(seq -f '17:%g' -s, 10 17)]" -a0

But I got the following error

Mix of configured and unconfigured drives are not possible. 
Exit Code: 0x0b

My first thought was that the controller recognized the new drives as foreign but this was not the case. I checked the physical drives (the new drives were enclosure ID 10 to 17) and got the following result

[...] Other 4 devices [...]
---
Enclosure Device ID: 17
Slot Number: 14
Firmware state: Online, Spun Up
Inquiry Data: VLKTVJ5Y WDC WD80EFZX-68UW8N0 83.H0A83
Foreign State: None 
Drive: Not Certified
---
Enclosure Device ID: 17
Slot Number: 15
Firmware state: Online, Spun Up
Inquiry Data: VLG3ZA6Y WDC WD80EFZX-68UW8N0 83.H0A83
Foreign State: None 
Drive: Not Certified
---
Enclosure Device ID: 17
Slot Number: 16
Firmware state: Unconfigured(good), Spun Up
Inquiry Data: ATA WDC WD80EFZX-68U0A83VLKW7A7Y 
Foreign State: None 
Drive: Not Supported
---
Enclosure Device ID: 17
Slot Number: 17
Firmware state: Unconfigured(good), Spun Up
Inquiry Data: ATA WDC WD80EFZX-68U0A83VLKW6Y8Y 
Foreign State: None 
Drive: Not Supported

6 out of the newly added 8 drives are recognized as "Not Certified" but the other 2 drives are saying "Not Supported". I bought 8 times the exact same Western Digital hard drive models. The only difference are their serial numbers.

Where's the difference between "Not Supported" and "Not Certified" and how does it come that MegaCLI is not able to create a RAID5 out of them all?

iLLogical
  • 29
  • 3
  • 1
    RAID 5...with 8TB disks... you must *HATE* your data - please don't do this, R5 has been essentially dead for the best part of a decade, it's borderline negligent for controller manufacturers to still be offering it. If you don't believe me either a) wait around for others to jump in or b) google 'why raid 5 is dead' - either way the only games in town are R1/10 and R6/60 - well maybe RAIDZ if you're a ZFS guy. – Chopper3 Apr 11 '17 at 15:36
  • @Chopper3 Thank you for sharing your concerns with me; I will overthink my decision to use RAID5. But at first I need to figure out why the drive is in "Not Supported" state. – iLLogical Apr 11 '17 at 15:48
  • They're not 4k-native disks are they? ideally you need to check with megaraid that those SPECIFIC disks are on their supported list - though it is very odd that you have some that work and some that don't - have you tried reversing their positions - see if the problem is with the disks or the slot/port? – Chopper3 Apr 11 '17 at 16:38
  • 1
    @Chopper3 Err I guess they are indeed native 4K disks (Model No. WD80EFZX, in case you want to look it up yourself again). I have to say that I did not check specific compatiblity beforehands, but the other 6 drives are running perfectly. I will try to reverse their positions as soon as I'm back at the datacenter. – iLLogical Apr 11 '17 at 18:14
  • A *LOT* of controllers struggle with 4-Native disks and even those that do usually need you to boot using UEFI rather than 'legacy BIOS' mode. – Chopper3 Apr 11 '17 at 19:13

0 Answers0