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

[Jonathan Sturges]

> 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.  

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