Seagate’s New Model Numbering Scheme

We just received a Seagate Partner e-mail that indicates that Seagate is changing the product model numbering scheme.

• Seagate Is Rolling Out New Model Numbers. Are You Ready?
• A registration form fronts the video which is hosted on a third party site.

As we can see, the model numbers have changed significantly relative to the current model number structures. In the current scheme The prefix ST3 means 3.5” drive, ST9 means 2.5” drive while the suffix AS is SATA, ES is Enterprise SATA, and SS is SAS. The numbers in between the prefix and suffix would be the size of the drive and then three numbers indicating model specifics.

A breakdown of the model number and what each means is this:

What we will end up with will actually be a simpler way to order Seagate drives. No more needing to know the various model numbers for whatever feature we want with a 500GB drive for example. With the new model number scheme the number will remain the same for the 320GB drive across all of is various feature sets while the model number will be specific to those feature sets.

It means that internally we can track all of the various feature sets for inventory purposes but our externally facing collateral will use the one model number to describe a 320GB drive. This makes for a much simpler presentation too.

Ultimately, when it comes to ordering product the new model numbering scheme will not make too much of a difference when searching our distribution channels for product. Now, we can search ST31000*SS to find any 1TB SAS drives, ST3500*NS to find any Enterprise SATA drives, and so on. After modifying our wildcard location to ST500* we will find any and all 500GB SKUs available to us. We can then use the same methodology as above to limit our search results to ST500MX* for Mission Critical 500GB drive models or ST*MX to bring up all Mission Critical products.

Note that not all distribution search engines support wildcard searches beyond dropping the asterisk at the end of some alpha characters.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Western Digital RE3 Series SATA Drives In Intel Hot Swap Expander Backplanes May Error Or Go Offline

It seems that there is an issue between the Western Digital RE3 SATA drives running at 3 Gb/s in Intel’s hot swap expander backplanes.

• Intel Support: TA-958: Drive errors may occur when using certain 3rd party drives at 3.0 Gb/s

Root Cause
The SAS expander chip on Intel® Server Drive Enclosure AXX6DRV3GEXP and AXX4DRV3GEXP experience an undesired flow-control behavior when connected to a SATA disk drive running at 3.0 Gb/s. Drives operating at 3.0 Gb/s may not receive proper data or SATA flow control and may result in a timeout error. There is no timeout at 1.5 Gb/s. This interoperability limitation of the SAS expander with SATA disk drive is currently seen on Western Digital’s RE3 series SATA drives.

Products affected:

• Intel Server Drive Enclosure AXX6DRV3GEXP
• 6 drive expander backplane.
• Intel Server Drive Enclosure AXX4DRV3GEXP
• 4 drive expander backplane.

To mitigate the issue the drive needs to be set to run at 1.5 Gbp/s by setting the jumper at position 5/6.

• Western Digital RE3 Support Page
• Western Digital RE3 Jumper Positions

It is also important to make sure that the hot swap backplane has the most current firmware.

• Intel Server Chassis SC5650 Support Page

The hot swap backplane firmware download link can be found on the server chassis support page.

SATA vs. SAS

As a rule we no longer use SATA drives in any of our server configurations.

With the cost of SAS drives having come down quite substantially over the last few years along with the huge performance benefits we get with using SAS drives there is really no reason to use SATA drives in a server setting anymore.

The exception to this rule is for Intel Solid-State Drives that run with a SATA interface.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Intel Modular Server – SATA to SAS Adapters for Intel X25-M SSDs or SATA

Intel has given us an extension on the Intel Modular Server demo box we have had for the last six to eight weeks.

We have mentioned in the past that there is an optional SATA to SAS adapter, AXXTM3SATA,  for the IMS that allows us to install 2.5” SATA based drives in the built-in storage unit.

So, since we were ordering from Tech Data Canada and they happened to have some, we ordered the stock that they had:

Note that it is very important to have a look in the IMS Tested Hardware and Operating Systems List (THOL) (previous blog post) to verify how we can combine SATA, SSD, and SAS drives in the IMS storage bays.

We did not find out about the IMS demo extension until after we had taken everything down and set the IMS into its shipping pallet setup.

So, we are going to pull a couple of 160GB Intel X25-M second generation SSDs out of stock and install them. We will use the SSDs for the Hyper-V OSs as well as the Hyper-V configuration and memory file location.

We now have a pretty good performance baseline for the pair of 146GB 15K Seagate drives we have been using for this purpose, so we are looking forward to the performance gains the SSDs will give us.

The extension was give because we would not be able to get our own Intel Modular Server into our shop and ready for my upcoming SBS clustering presentation for the Edmonton Microsoft User Group on the twentieth.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Reuse Laptop Slim DVD-ROM Drives With a SATA Adapter

We have a stack of slim IDE DVD-ROM drives that came out of old laptops that have since been recycled. Up to now, they were reused if a laptop came in out of warranty with a dead optical drive.

But, we have since found an adapter that enables us to take the stock drive and connect an IDE to SATA adapter for reuse in some of our server builds.

DVD-RW or combo drives are not needed in servers in most cases. The optical drive may get used once or perhaps twice as a rule for the OS install and possibly a restore boot from the OS disk.

The adapter from StarTech’s Web site:

Shown in the above product shot is the IDE connector. The opposite side of the board has a standard SATA data connector along with a small Molex floppy style power connector.

StarTech’s Product site:

• StartTech: SATA to Slim Optical IDE Drive Adapter
• Part Number: OPT2SATA

The part is listed in our Canadian distribution channel and some distributers actually have stock on them.

Besides servers, we will have the occasional Mini-ITX based system (previous blog post) that will not require any read/write capabilities, so we will use them there and give the system price the appropriate price break as the slim optical drives are not inexpensive.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*All Mac on SBS posts will not be written on a Mac until we replace our now missing iMac! (previous blog post)

Windows Live Writer

Seagate Hard Drive Brick Fix for 7200.11, ES.2 - Possibly

It looks like someone knows a little about the inner workings of Seagate hard drives.

They have posted a series of fix steps for Seagate hard drives that have seemingly bricked themselves because of bad firmware:

• MSFN Forums: The Solution for Seagate 7200.11 HDDs (final and revised version)
• MSFN Forums: The Solution for Seagate 7200.11 HDDs

There are two separate reasons for the bricking of the drive with a specific methodology to deal with each reason. Keep this in mind. One of the methodologies requires the daughter board to be swapped while powered up leaving lots of room for frying it.

We have used a daughter board swap method to recover data on hard drives in the past. Though there was no power applied.

In this case, we are talking about connecting to the hard drive's underlying firmware structures via an RS232 based terminal session and working with the base level commands to bring the drive back to life.

This methodology is not for the feint of heart. This bears repeating: This methodology is not for the feint of heart.

This particular person has been kind enough to share the fix methodology, so if it is needed then handle with care.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

*All Mac on SBS posts are posted on our in-house iMac via the Safari Web browser.

System Builder Tip: DQ35JOE SATA Port Order and Optical drive placement

With the advent of optical drives utilizing a SATA interface for data, one needs to keep in mind where that drive will plug into the motherboard.

This was true with the IDE optical drives as well. One would not plug the optical drive into the same cable as the hard drive as the data bus would configure itself according to the slowest device on the cable and system data throughput/performance would take a huge hit.

While this may not be the case with SATA with regards to connected device speed, one still must consider the order of devices connected to the SATA controller. This is especially important if we are integrating a RAID setup via the on board RAID controller.

In the case of the DQ35JOE, one must also take careful note of the SATA connector order on the board itself. For whatever reason, the ports are not in an intuitive order.

Note the following:

DQ35JOE SATA Port Order

They are as follows:

• eSATA [port 3]
• SATA2
• SATA5 --- SATA1
• SATA4 --- SATA0

Note that the last port in the order, SATA5 (in bold), is situated in the middle of the cluster of connectors. The eSATA port would otherwise be labelled SATA3.

So, which port would be the one to connect a SATA optical drive into?

While there may be no actual convention in place, we would say the last SATA port in the connector set: SATA5.

We would populate SATA0 and SATA1 for a RAID1/0 setup or SATA0/1 and SATA 2/4 for a RAID 1/0 or RAID 5 setup.

Time and testing will reveal how the system will behave with the optical drive plugged into other ports, but while at the Intel Technical Solutions Training (TST) event last Friday, our Intel instructor, Eric, did indicate to us the people in other TST build sessions had troubles before they realized that they had the optical drive plugged into the "wrong" port or in the wrong order relative to the hard drive.

Some links:

• Intel DQ35JOE Supported Processors via the Compatibility Tool
• Intel DQ35JOE System Memory - Configuration & Supported
• Intel DQ35JOE Technical Product Specification [pdf]
• Intel DQ35JOE Product Brief [pdf]

When integrating desktops or servers - especially in the case of servers - one must investigate the various support materials for the products being integrated into the system. The first two links are especially important in JOE's case!

Why? Because it will save a bunch of time troubleshooting those "beep codes" or BIOS messages or server board "Error Light Conditions" or spontaneous system reboots or seemingly no action at all ... etc ... etc ... etc.

Remember, we cannot satisfy Intel's warranty validity requirements if the integration conditions laid out in the support materials are not followed.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

*All Mac on SBS posts are posted on our in-house iMac via the Safari Web browser.

System Builder Tip: Seagate SATA 300 jumper limits to SATA 150

For those of us who build systems, whether occasionally, or all the time, it is important to note that Seagate includes a jumper on their SATA 300 GBs (SATA II) hard drives that limits the drive's performance to 150 GBs.

For some older Intel RAID controllers, and others, that are limited to SATA 150, this setting applies.

But for newer SATA 300 RAID controllers as well as onboard SATA 300 controllers this jumper should be removed in order to obtain the performance that the hard drive was designed for.

A label on top of the drive indicates this:

Philip E.
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists.