Server HDD Replacement?

NOLACop

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I have a Dell Poweredge 2900 server that was recently updated to Windows Server 2012. I have several open HDD bays and I added a WD Purple 4TB drive i an open bay for CCTV recordings. I could not get the server to recognize the drive at all in disk management. But, when I removed the drive, I got an error on the small LCD display that the HDD in bay 4 was removed. I put the HDD in an external HDD dock and connected via USB and the drive pops up instantly and is available for use.

Is there a reason I can't get the drive to work using the available HDD bay? It is a SATA drive and all other drives in the server are all SATA. I thought maybe there was a size limit or something but I can't find any limitations for Server 2012.
 
Are there any SAS disks on that controller? Can't mix SAS and SATA disks, it's one or the other.

Also, if you have the default PERC5/i SAS controller, it will NOT support anything over 2TB.


So yeah, while the server sees a disk of some form there, it has no idea at all what to do with it.
 
You might want to check out this documentation. This server may have the PERC 5/i controller, which you can find listed here but you need to check your machine to verify:
http://www.dell.com/downloads/emea/products/pedge/en/pe2900_Spec_Sheet_Quad.pdf

According to this next link, that controller can only handle a maximum of 2TB physical drives:
32TB on PowerEdge 2900 - PowerEdge HDD/SCSI/RAID Forum - Servers - Dell Community

Aside from that, the drive may be starting to fail (like the SMART test) and not fully failed. Pulling it up on another computer doesn't mean it is or isn't bad. I would suggest swapping the drive with a known good drive (new or tested) to make sure that slot isn't having an issue or running a diagnostic on that drive to verify.

Also, those servers have SAS drives, not SATA. To learn about the difference (I just did not long ago myself :)) you can go here: Differences between SAS and SATA

I hope that helps you out!

EDIT: c0rr0sive beat me to it, but same info.
 
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every drive I see on the box is a SATA drive not an SAS. I will check the Raid controller today but I think it is the one yall mentioned so that may be my issue.
 
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