How to reformat drive sector size | 520b 524b 528b to 512b or 4k

[@cdtluna]

Glad I found this: i am in the middle of trying this oud on my 16 SSDs that I bought without knowing that they are 520s: i will keep you posted on my progress

[@ArtofServer]

Good luck! Hope it works out for you 🤞

[@UnkyjoesPlayhouse]

another great vid, I archive these away for later usage.

[@ArtofServer]

Thanks for watching buddy ☺️

[@martym5194]

Yeah this is one of my fav channels indeed! I love the content!! Have your Channel also bookmarked Unkyjoe! ;-)

[@MarkJay]

this just happened to me with 4 refurbished enterprise SAS drives I bought from ebay. After hours of troubleshooting, I finally came across the dmesg error which pointed me in the right direction.

[@ArtofServer]

Hope this helped you! :-)

[@rufusmurphy9990]

FYI the sg_ tools are included on the SLI 3 iso, which is what I used to re-format my EMC(HUC10909) drives in my R620 (after i flashed the H710)😁

[@ArtofServer]

Are you referring to the Dell Support Live image based on CentOS?

[@GeoffSeeley]

@9:13 the behavior of the LED for SAS drives can be changed with sdparm and the setting Ready Light Meaning (RLM) and is a parameter you can save to the drive. Not sure this works for SSD, but it does for 3.5" SAS enterprise HDD on a Supermicro backplane (no more solid blue lights!) NOTE: SATA drives do no support this.

[@ArtofServer]

Oh wow! I didn't know that! I'll have to check that out! Thank you for the tip!

[@martym5194]

@@ArtofServer Hi! I want to confirm that this fixed that issue on my SAS 3.5" drives running off my H710p Mini flashed to IT mode in my R720 server. You helped me get that to work properly! I remember we had talked prior to this video about the H710P and for whatever reason, when i flashed it, activity LED's acted differently. Also a big shout out of course to @Geoff Seeley for putting that out there, big help indeed for us using SAS ssd and SAS hdd.

[@BrianCrowellthemusic]

AoS has saved me from my home server noobness yet again!

[@ArtofServer]

Glad I could help! :-)

[@Destructor8031]

Very helpful vid. I got a bunch of 520 byte HGST drives and thought I could just change the sector size with WD HUGO which is what I've been using for changing 512e drives to 4kn. However while it appeared to work on these 520 byte drives, the drives would report being 512 but they still would not work properly and would not format and spit out I/O errors.

[@ArtofServer]

I just learned about the hugo tool today. were you able to use sg3_utils to fix it?

[@SpazHeadSlotVideos]

another great video! could you do one on how to allow SAS drives to sleep in UNraid?

[@ArtofServer]

Great suggestion! Thanks for watching!

[@fernandochaves8456]

do you have any video explaining why enterprise storage uses 520B/528B sector sizes and what is the relation to T10-PI protection information?

[@ArtofServer]

no, but that's a good future video idea. thanks!

[@philstaples8122]

Try it on 10TB SAS spinning rust drives, it takes forever, doing 8 of the damn things right now

[@ArtofServer]

Yeah, try to run them in parallel to save time. It's an internal process within the HDD, so as long as the HDD is powered on, it will continue running the task.

[@manbu7849]

It is also possible with an adaptec 5405 - You just have to make some entries direct into the adapter-bios-configuration (boot etc. all enable)

[@mrpaulohssantos]

Thanks for the video, It worked for me on V7000 IBM hard drives. It took me a while to make it work since I was trying to run sgformat on /dev/sg0 (the output from sg_scan -i) and it was not working. After 12 hours of failures I finally tried to run on /dev/sda (output from fdisk -l) and it worked.

[@ArtofServer]

Glad it helped

[@QuranSam]

What your hard disk working in v7000 mean flash ssd 528b to 512e working please tell me

[@mrpaulohssantos]

@@QuranSam hi, it should work. I got some hitachi hdds from V7000 that worked, but some seagates I couldn’t make work

[@UnderWorldFading]

Hey man, hope you're doing well. Love your videos btw, I've been trying to learn how to setup this R730 I recently got and I got some 4TB HGST HDDs I have on hand, and you guessed it, I have them on a 520 sector size and the config menu says they're blocked. I know you said I'd need an hba controller, but I've been looking at the H730 Mini I have on my side and it says it can be configured on hba mode, is that enough or do I absolutely need to purchase the card? If so, what's the difference between them if you don't mind me asking? Thanks again for your time

[@ArtofServer]

Hi! You can certainly try the H730 in "HBA mode" and see if it provides the necessary access (the SCSI generic interface) to allow the low level reformat. If that doesn't work though, I think you'll need a real HBA SAS controller instead. The "HBA mode" still loads the "MegaRAID" (aka megasas) driver, even if the drives are passed through directly in that mode. With a real HBA, it uses the mpt2sas or mpt3sas driver instead. The behaviors of the drivers may differ, depending on implementation.

[@dimitristsoutsouras2712]

Hi This was the most relevant video of yours i could ask this...... How come and there are no 3.5" drives sas2 /sas3 at 10k and they are all 7.2k, at capacities over 1.8 - 2 Tb? Would it be wise to use these drives for VMs? On the contrary, 2.5 inch sas drives at capacities up to 1.8Tb, are way easier to find. What i am looking here is random speed (which of course depends on many other factors of Hdds) for Vm usage. Any insight on this? Thank you.

[@ArtofServer]

There used to be 10K, 12K, 15K RPM 3.5" SCSI drives a long time ago by Seagate and Fujitsu. the only reason to increase RPMs is to reduce latency, however, since the introduction of SSDs, there's no point in trying to achieve low latency with spinning HDDs since it is more economical to achieve low latency with SSDs. The only advantage HDDs have now is low cost per TB so I think that's why HDDs are now 7.2K or 5K RPM drives now.

[@TechTechPotato]

Can you mention your HBA/LSI in the video description

[@ArtofServer]

The R630 had a HBA330 in it.

[@HinkleMcKrinkle]

@@ArtofServer will the mini-mono330 flashed to IT mode work for this as well?

[@myjunkarea5808]

I don't get it. How can physical sector size be 8k (and variants) bytes? Isn't AF standart only 4k (and variants)?

[@netbugs]

I bought several SAS drives from ebay and realized there are exact same situation what described on your video. I'm using dell R630 too, but the raid controller (H730 mini) showing "BLOCKED" for those drives that i'm failed to reformat those hard drive on linux. Do you have any idea on that. Thanks for your help and great video!

[@ArtofServer]

You need to use a HBA controller, not a RAID controller. For the R630, look for HBA330 or H330 crossflashed to IT mode firmware. I have these available in my store if you'd like to support me, but available elsewhere too. Link in the video description.

[@MrMrRubic]

Will it work in a RAID-controller after format?

[@shanematthews1985]

Ok and how would you go about doing this on a drive that is blocked by the PERC controller in the first place so isn't even being passed to the OS

[@ArtofServer]

You're not supposed to use a PERC RAID controller. As explained in this video, you need to have an HBA controller.

[@Magicairsoft9]

You can possibly use Oracle Solaris starting with 11.2.2 with direct connected disks with AFD. Enterprise format for very few enterprise software.

[@JohnWilliams-eo8rt]

Can I please have the link to the video which talks about diagnosing hardware :)

[@ArtofServer]

Not exactly sure what you're talking about, but maybe see if something in this playlist helps you: kzbin.info/aero/PL28eVGz5vFQ9cGBGhFzCtHqQ-TtXBZV6m

[@tunacious]

Thanks, Little more details in description would help. commands and what not. I popped Open cli in unraid and formatted like at 10 drives at once .

[@godisgood5089]

Why do they make 8320 byte physical sectors? I assume the 128 extra bytes is for some kind of parity or cache or journaling data?

[@ArtofServer]

I've never researched the technical details of how the extra bits are used so I don't know. But I suspect similarly it might be for per sector parity or perhaps meta-data.

[@cetromero15]

Hello great video thank you for the information. Do you know if this can be done on Hard disk drives that came out of a server? Thanks again

[@ArtofServer]

Yes, this can be done on SAS hard drives as well. Thanks for watching!

[@apreviousseagle836]

Does it matter what version of Linux you're using? I'm going to download CentOS and install it just to follow your instructions exactly as shown. I'm not sure I will have much luck though. I have a Cisco UCS C220 M4, and a few NetApp SAS 2.5" that show up as "unsupported" in the MegaRAID config. I know the controller is an LSI controller. I can dig exact models if you want me to find out.

[@apreviousseagle836]

Well, no luck. The drives do not show up at all whether using the lsscsi command, or the dmesg command with the grep piped search. They are completely missing from the output all together. :(

[@ArtofServer]

You cannot do this with a MegaRAID or most RAID controllers. You have to use a IT mode SAS controller. I believe I mentioned this. Using RAID, the drives are not presented to the OS unless you configure some sort of VD with them.

[@apreviousseagle836]

@@ArtofServer Yes you did mention it. I guess I will have to find one.

[@annanicologlo1744]

Does it work with SATA disks? I have one which is 4k but my Synology does not want to work with it. Any idea? Thanks

[@ArtofServer]

I have not tried this with SATA drives. I believe you would need a different tool for SATA drives. As for Synology issue, you might want to contact Synology to see if your drive model is compatible with their system.

[@toady0013]

Hi, I successfully managed to format but still when adding it as a VD on my H700 the drive goes red and goes to failed state. These are Seagate Enterprise Drive. Any ideas or advice, I see mention about using was controllers not raid controllers but no explanation.

[@ArtofServer]

Make sure your H700 has the latest firmware. There were some updates that improved compatibility.

[@toady0013]

@@ArtofServer Could have been it. Not sure if the latest firmware made changes to block size support but was due to me formatting to 4K block size. Found out by checking manual which says H700 only supports 512 block size.

[@slybunda]

any bench tests to see if there is performance difference from 512b to 4k sector?

[@ArtofServer]

That's a good idea. I'll keep that in mind for future video!

[@douggale5962]

None. Seeks and waiting for rotation are the source of practically all of the delays. If you mean SSD, then I am sorry to tell you that their write granularity is more than even 4K.

[@henryrendler8798]

Great Video! I have some netapp ssds that I am able to reformat using the nvme format -l 2 /dev/nvme0 command. However, the disks default back to the original bloc size after cold reboot. Any ideas to make sure these changes persist after reboot? Thanks!

[@ArtofServer]

Wow, I have never heard of something like that?! There are some cases where the reformat command will fail for reasons I don't fully understand. But I've never had a successful format that "faked" it...

[@ManuelStraner]

Quick question what number depicts if the hard drive able to 4k sector. Is it base number or is it a mathematical equation based on size of the drive?

[@ArtofServer]

It usually says 512 or 4096.

[@allencampbell2102]

What's the deal with Dell Compellent drives? I got a SC220 with some ssds and 15 (all same Dell part number 82FG7) show as blocked or not supported or failed depending on the RAID card. The other part numbers all work normally. I have not been able to find anything useful from google in regards to reusing these drives, do you have any experience with them?

[@ArtofServer]

Compellent was a NAS/SAN company that got bought by Dell. A lot of SAN systems use non-standard sector sizes. So, perhaps you need to reformat them as explained in this video?

[@allencampbell2102]

@@ArtofServer Here is the output for 1 of the drives when I try to check the blocksize with dmesg as you do in the video: - Read Capacity(16) failed: Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE - Sense Key : Medium Error [current] - Add. Sense: Medium format corrupted - Read Capacity(10) failed: Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE - Sense Key : Medium Error [current] - Add. Sense: Medium format corrupted - Write Protect is off - Mode Sense: d3 00 10 08 - Write cache: disabled, read cache: enabled, supports DPO and FUA All 15 of these drives are doing this, but other part numbers show up exactly as they do in this video. They are all the Sandisk Lightning SAS LB1606R rebranded as Dell Enterprise, all running fw ver. E338. I see from Sandisk that the latest fw for this disk is P331 (support-en.wd.com/app/answers/detailweb/a_id/40589). So I am thinking that E338 is some kind of Dell proprietary fw only usable by a Compellent array. Apologies for the delayed reply!

[@TheCoribo]

Hi, Thank you a lot for you tuto. It helps me a lot to get 3 SAS drives able to use. for one of them, I get this error "illegal request". Do you have an idea waht can be the origin? Thank you a lot. You are doing a good job.

[@ArtofServer]

Thanks for your kind words. I'm not sure what that error message is. Maybe encrypted drive? Or perhaps wrong sector size?

[@xuanleanh5437]

Can you tell me if to do this on r630, you must have hba330 or equivalent?

[@ArtofServer]

Yes, that's correct

[@davidkuznetsov2260]

In my case, Dell M620 server, booted SLI 3 and I don't see my 2 SAS drives under Linux OS. Not sure what's wrong, I can't convert them to non-raid drives, all settings are locked under PD management in the PERC utility. PERC H310 Mini (Embedded), tried disabling raid array as it's embedded and it didn't help, Linux, Windows, ESXi can't see those drives. Looks like I need some array that supports HBA mode.

[@ArtofServer]

If you want to perform the reformatting as described in this video, you'll likely need a HBA type of controller, not a RAID/PERC controller.

[@davidkuznetsov2260]

@@ArtofServer got it, thank you!

[@davidkuznetsov2260]

And HP P220i also does not support 4096 block size, so I could not use that raid as well. But only in HBA mode to convert drives.

[@dougm275]

esxi takes my EMC, UCS, and Smartstor disks(all on the HCI) as is and they're all 520 bytes. No disk-specific warnings when I put them into a vSAN configuration, *except for the EMC* I put the UCS ones together with IBM System X ST1000NMs formatted to 512(also on HCI list). Do I not have to worry about the sector size? It seems like a 520b sector cache drive for 512b sector HDDs would cause a performance penalty, but I still have a lot to learn about storage.

[@ArtofServer]

I didn't know esxi can work with 520b sectors! that's a very interesting observation. is it able to use those extra 8-bytes for something?

[@dougm275]

@@ArtofServer I misspoke, vSAN wouldn't put the VNX disks into a vSAN drive group but you can turn them into datastores just fine. For the 200GB drives, the datastore ends up being around 180 or so GB.

[@tanmay5570]

can this method be used to format a 512e hdd to 4kn hdd?

[@ArtofServer]

not sure, never tried that, but sounds plausible.

[@mattpdx86]

Hey I have 4 Seagate Savvio 10K 6 ST600MM0006 SAS Drives that I want to go into a HPE ML350 Gen 9 Server, but the drives I got from a guy who has many of them, when trying to use them in the server, the HP Storage Administrator could Identify them but I could not use them. I could not use them in windows either. I realized that I could not format them in the normal method, and I figured that this sector size had to be the issue, but this program allowed me to format them. I am in the middle of formatting them in windows right now and the command that I used is in powershelgl: .\sg-format --format --size=512 -v pd0 2 and so on. I cannot see the 4th one. I did something in windows to that one and I am not sure what I did but the drive spins up no issue but I have to find it. Any thoughts on it? message me please. These drives will be going in windows Server 2022 as LBA and not raid in the hardware sense, but in server 3 of them will be in a raid 0 Thanks. I also subscribed as well.

[@ArtofServer]

Sorry, I don't know much about Windows Server stuff. Maybe someone else reading these comments can help out? Or, try asking your question at servethehome.com forum?

[@NikitaLab]

Damn fam it literally couldn't be easier, thanks for the vid

[@ArtofServer]

glad it helped! thanks for watching!

[@counttoast2647]

It could, try dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/(device) bs=1M count=100 This will turn any drive in an unformated one and only takes 1 second.

[@ryanleeis]

my PE r730 is showing some new sas drives blocked.. im assuming this is what the problem is.. one shows non-raid and it detects fine?

[@ArtofServer]

That's one possibility. Are your drives from a SAN or NAS device? Another possibility is if the driver has self-encryption.

[@Canada_Immigration_Bible]

Unfortunately returned 5x 3TB SAS Hitachi disks that i bought for CAD $ 30 (for all 5 disks), because i dont know how to format to 512 !!! Windows reported crc error when i tried to format it/bring it to online, seagate tools said it failed long self test, so had to return. Today similar 2TB disks (hitachi SAS HUS72302CLAR2000), after formatting to 512, works like a charm. Now i missed my 5x 3 TB disks, that i got for dirt cheap from a local IT recyler in Canada.

[@ArtofServer]

Glad you finally found this video! :-) Sorry you missed out on that deal, but there's always more deals in the future. I post them on my community page sometimes so subscribe! :-)

[@see-sharp]

Is it possible to do that for non-scsi disks?

[@ArtofServer]

I don't know... there's a tool called hdparm for SATA drives that you might want to check out.

[@see-sharp]

@@ArtofServer Thank you

[@vasquezmi]

I have a R720. Does the raid cars have to be in IT mode in order for this to work with your steps?

[@ArtofServer]

Yes, if you are going to use the sg_format tool, you'll need it in IT mode to low level direct access to the drives.

[@andynmaas]

I got problem buy HUH721010AL5204 had custom firmware and format using 520 bytes. I am using R730 and H730P mini and because not supported unable to see the file using Centos Live Image from DELL version 3.0.0. Can you tell me how I can configure H730P so it able to format the drive to 512 bytes?

[@ArtofServer]

Usually, this requires using an HBA SAS controller and not a RAID SAS controller. However, you can try using the "HBA mode" of the H730p and see if that works with this video. If not, you need HBA like the HBA330 mini.

[@andynmaas]

@@ArtofServer I changed H730P to HBA mode and it only see drive had 512 byte/sector. So I just bought H330 mini on your ebay

[@jeremyfaulk3836]

Can you do a video on how to setup a fiber channel HBA based SAN on a server? i.e. Server with FC HBA Card + SAN

[@ArtofServer]

Thanks for the suggestion, but I don't have any FC stuff here anymore.

[@shahzadasalim5032]

SIR, can you help me, for repair 8tb hitachi desktop hdd sata 7280. please

[@brucet3270]

I purchased four HGST 4TB 7.2K 3.5" EMC SAS HUS724040ALS640 520 FORMAT 118033264-03 to install into a PowerEdge T410. After installing, the perc 6i controller saw the drives but only labled one as ready and the other 3 failed. The Size/MB only listed 549120 which is certainly not 4 TB. Is the 520 format what is causing all the problems? I never realized to look for that. Are all Enterprise SAS drives formated at 520? Can I format these as in your video with the raid controller listed? If not recommend one for me with cables that will fit the backplane. Thanks

[@brucet3270]

I have this controller ( Dell PERC H200 LSI SAS2008 FW:P20 9211-8I it Fashion ZFS FREENAS ) that has been flashed for IT mode. Will the cables in the server fit it? Will it provide the ability to low level format the drives ?

[@brucet3270]

I also have this controller which I think is HBA natively. LSI SAS 9210-8i 8-port 6Gb/s PCIe x8 HBA RAID + SAS SFF-8087 to 4x SATA Cable. But as you see it has sas to sata cables. What cable would I need to install this in the server and have it connect to the back plane. Will the back plane then deliver 6Gb/s speeds ( Sata III )? NO MORE QUESTIONS>>>> 🙂

[@ArtofServer]

@Bruce T Not all enterprise drives are formatted this way. Usually only those from storage arrays that ran some SAN or NAS OS that utilizes those extra bytes. If you notice the difference between actual size and reported size being about 8x, then it's likely a 4kn support issue... as 4kn sectors are 8x the size of 512b sectors. To format those drives as shown in this video, you will need a HBA SAS controller. I have not found a way to do it via a RAID SAS controller. If you just need to do the formatting and after that you won't be needing the controller, I would get the cheapest SAS-2 LSI HBA... something like 9201-8i or 9240-8i with IT mode firmware. These are available in my store, so checkout the link in the video description.

[@beatboxpl]

@Art of Server @2:07 "login to the machine" - Is this mean, you login to the linux installed on SD card inserted in SD slot in iDRAC? I Cant make disks visible to ubuntu installed on ssd connected to sata 0...

[@DrivingWithJake]

Using an LSI megaraid however it looks like the raid controller detects the drives as 520b however the OS isn't showing them with any of these commands. Any suggestions? Guessing maybe I need a HBA for it

[@EnduringGuerila]

Same issue here

[@wolf-tw7ee]

your video saved me.

[@ArtofServer]

Glad it helped!

[@JuanPerez-uw9fh]

Sorry if I don't get it but could this be possible on a regular PC with an adapter PCIe card so I can reformat some SAS drives or is it mandatory to aquire an enterprise grade server to do this? I don't quite get the hardware requirements for this process and I'm looking forward to give it a try. And this is because I think, if I use a regular PC to reformat the drives but they don't even show up on the OS then they can't be reformated.

[@JuanPerez-uw9fh]

@@user-wl7dt1uw2e Sadly, no. The only way to know for me was to give it a try. I didn't end up doing it yet.

[@RandomPerson-sb5mw]

Is it possible to make a set of 12g 4k hgst drives work in a dell r710 with a h700 controller? I purchased the wrong drives.

[@ArtofServer]

I suspect probably not with the H700. try applying the latest Dell firmware update to the H700 and see if it works. Chances of 4kn support with HBAs are higher.

[@pabloriel6612]

Will this work for blocked drives?

[@ArtofServer]

Depends on why they are "blocked", but yes if the problem is due to sector size format, then this will help.

[@pabloriel6612]

@@ArtofServer yes I just realised the drives are 520, so I'll try convert them thank you

[@shahzadasalim5032]

SIR, I have 4tb seagate sas with 520, want to format with 512 for use in windows 7, can i do this in win7, please help. thanks

[@ArtofServer]

Yes, you can. Just find the windows version of the tools mentioned in this video.

[@shahzadasalim5032]

@@ArtofServer THANKS

[@shahzadasalim5032]

SIR, Thanks for your reply, we need windows 7 64bit ???,

[@jj-icejoe6642]

Oh yes nice thank you so much !!! And 512e ?

[@ArtofServer]

512e usually refers to 512b sectors but with a hardware native sector size larger than that, usually 4k or 8k. in a way, it is sort of 512b sector emulation on a natively larger sector size.

[@mevk1]

I have one of these bought on eBay and have windows desktop, and laptops. I want to clone my desktop windows OS drive to this but of course can't since it is 4096 and my older destop is all 512 size. The clone will be my backup in case main HD fails. Will the windows sg3 utilities allow cloning and will the drive play nicely with the other the 2 other 512s on my desktop? Little leary doing this without some professional guidance.

[@ArtofServer]

Sorry, I haven't used Windows in so long, I'm not the best person to help here. I will mention that drives that have 4kn sectors can also be formatted to 512e sectors to behave just like 512n drives. So, that might help with your cloning efforts.

[@davidhumphreys479]

How do you see the individual drive through the raid controller? Did you do something special to the server or is a different command than sg_scan -i

[@ArtofServer]

I'm not using a RAID controller. I'm using HBA controller.

[@ManDogAndCows]

how do i do that in wmware esxi?

[@anthonystrohmayer9191]

And I take it you are plugging in a flashed lsi hba card to it p20 and plugging that into the server's backplane?

[@ArtofServer]

Good point and i probably should have elaborated on the hardware setup a bit. Yes, in the R630 server, I had a HBA330 IT mode mini monolithic card connected to the backplane driving those Samsung drives. I believe an HBA is necessary to have direct access to the drives in order to do this reformatting.

[@anthonystrohmayer9191]

@@ArtofServer I came across a post on NetApps forum where the NetApp employee said to use NetApp 111-00341 HBA X2065A-R6 for a ds4243 because linux kernel will see the card as PMC PM8001 SAS controller. And see 520 byte drives as 512. This employee said nothing about the card having to be flashed to it p20 mode. Is this true?

[@ArtofServer]

@@anthonystrohmayer9191 That's completely news to me and I have no idea.

[@anthonystrohmayer9191]

@@ArtofServer Do you make videos for people with limited budgets? The hba330 it card is over 100$ to format a few drives. What bottom price card can format hard drives?

[@ArtofServer]

​@@anthonystrohmayer9191 Well, my videos are FREE on KZbin... except maybe you have to watch a few ads or something... ??? As far as I know, any LSI HBA can be used to do this reformatting. If you're on a low budget, I would suggest one of the SAS2008 based cards.

[@jgorres]

I'm planning out an old PC - to - NAS project... Will I be able to do this with my PC? (Core i7 3770, ASUS PZ68-V)

[@ArtofServer]

If you have an HBA SAS controller, then yes.

[@jgorres]

Thank you. I'll likely be in touch through eBay as soon as I'm ready.

[@eduardmart1237]

Can you use 520 bytes with a raid controller? As a parity check

[@ArtofServer]

not usually.

[@shahzadasalim5032]

SIR, can we use normal computer like core2duo or corei3,

[@ArtofServer]

probably, but that's going back a long ways....

[@TheDopalgangr]

once you flash the card to IT mode does it stay in that mode or do you have to go into the OPROM on boot up to place it into that mode. I ask because I have the card installed into an Lenovo and it never shows the ROM option no matter what setting I make in the BIOS.

[@ArtofServer]

it just stays in IT mode. no tweaking in system BIOS except if you need to choose to boot off the HBA card if your boot drive is on it.

[@alymadhani2005]

Can this be done with a repair controller? Do I mount the drives as logical in the raid bios.

[@ArtofServer]

what is a "repair controller" ?

[@sauliusjuozaitis7466]

Hi, I'm trying to reformat the Hitachi HGST HUC101212CSS600, after preforming the sg_format --format --size=512 /dev/sgX the drive changes the "Logical block size:512" but at the same time the "User Capacity:512 bytes [512 B]" changes. If I revert to Logical block size:520" the disk capacity changes to normal disk capacity "User Capacity:1,200,243, 694,848 bytes [1.20 TB]" Any ideas what is wrong with the HDD?

[@ArtofServer]

Sorry, I've never seen that before.

[@sauliusjuozaitis15]

Hi and thanks for coming back. I actually managed convert to 512, however for further user I need to upgrade the firmware ware, but HDD have vendor-lock which blocks to preform firmware upgrade. Do you have any knowledge or experience with removing vendor-lock?

[@keratishvili]

Hi, I have question about sas HGST 520b drives I converted them to 512 but is upgrading firmware on hdd is good idea? they are from 2013

[@ArtofServer]

I haven't had the need to upgrade the firmware on HGST drives, so I don't know much about it.

[@Saturn2888]

Do I need to worry about this with ZFS?

[@ArtofServer]

This is not a problem specific to ZFS or any file system or volume manager. It's a problem between the drive's sector size and the OS block device layer. If you OS can't work with the sector size, then it's a problem regardless of ZFS or anything else.

[@Saturn2888]

@@ArtofServer Which OSs can't handle it? Newer Windows have support I thought and so do Linux and BSD right?

[@vanpeters9751]

I have dell or r710 8x 2.5" with idrac 6 I use lvm2

[@ArtofServer]

Cool. checkout my R710 series: kzbin.info/aero/PL28eVGz5vFQ9hUBeeg5bxj-s0IeitoGIb

[@daggy7893]

How to change block size on the windows 10, want use my hdd on desktop ( have already LSI controller)

[@ArtofServer]

same procedure as in this video. just use the Windows version of the sg_utils.

[@eury360]

What correct Sector Size should my 2TB NVMe SSD be?

[@ArtofServer]

You don't format NVMe using this method...

[@eury360]

@@ArtofServer So how do you do it correctly?

[@MrMrRubic]

I have to do this with about 60 drives. How would I do it so I wouldn't have to run the command manually for every single drive?

[@ArtofServer]

In Linux, you can just run an iterative loop command. That's how I do it for 24 drives at a time.

[@MrMrRubic]

@@ArtofServer could you give me an example? I am sadly very new to Linux :)

[@ArtofServer]

@@MrMrRubic If you're new to Linux, might want to get familiar first before doing more advanced tasks. But as for example: for i in {1..24} do sg_format --format --size=512 /dev/sg$i & done Or something like that...

[@MrMrRubic]

@@ArtofServer so if i want to do that to the disks, without including the enclosure SG id or my boot device, would i do: `for i in {1..15}{17..31}{33..47}{49..63}{65..79}{81..95}{97..111}{113..127} do sg_format --format --size=512 /dev/sg$i & done` or something else? i basically need to skip /dev/sg0,16,32,48,64,80,96,112,128,129. edit: as i saud in the other comment, yanked one SAS cable to get rid of multimode. then i followed your recipe, but at the format step i made a script in text editor, made it executable and ran it. script looked like this:

[@MrMrRubic]

pastebin.com/F4Vg7Q2K Pastebin of the lsscsi -g. i notice i have about 130 devices, around 12 of which i dont want to do anything with. did some of the disks duplicate themselves. as i know i only have 60 drives plugged in. edit: the duplicate disks are multipath, since the SAS disks have 2 channels, so 60x2=120. How would this affect formatting? edit 2: i just did a smart one and disconnected one of the sas-connectors

[@ukmayhemproductions]

hi mate does this have to be a lsi controller i have 2 r710s one with a perc 600 and one with a perc 700 i also use a few dl380s with a p410i and raid expansion ? thanks in advance

[@ArtofServer]

It doesn't have to be a LSI card, but it does have to be an HBA card to allow direct access to the drive to run these commands successfully.

[@ukmayhemproductions]

@@ArtofServer oh awesome thanks for the reply i guess the 3 i said arnt hba are you selling any in your shop or can you suggest one ?

[@ukmayhemproductions]

made the mistake of grabbing 20 netapp drives heh so thanks to you i know how to fix them but i dont have the parts to do so haha

[@ArtofServer]

@@ukmayhemproductions watch this video kzbin.info/www/bejne/noXFfK2Hj9BlZ9k Link to my store in the video description. :-)

[@alanzheng4233]

Will this work for the Sata ssd ? Can the sata ssd 520 sector format to 512 ?

[@ArtofServer]

This is only for SAS devices.

[@alanzheng4233]

@@ArtofServer is there any way to format the sata drive?

[@chrisparkin4989]

If you use -ffmt=1 its much faster sg_format -format -ffmt=1 -size=4096 /dev/sg0 other than that great video

[@ArtofServer]

Thanks for sharing that tip!

[@ishmaelmusgrave]

Very nice. Wendell from Level1Techs (or L1Linux) did the same for 520b drives a while ago. He does not have an ebay shop though. Thanks for he run through though, I didn't know sg utils had so many tools

[@ArtofServer]

Thanks! glad it was helpful. Thanks for watching!

[@heshelk22]

Great man!, but what if i have windows?

[@ArtofServer]

The same tools are available for windows. I just don't use windows anymore.

[@heshelk22]

@@ArtofServer thank you for youre reply, where I can found that tools?

[@ArtofServer]

watch the video?

[@louissantillan1860]

Do you have any tips for wiping out a SED SAS drive? Struggling to make use of a used 6TB Seagate I bought that came "Locked" and "SED" enabled.

[@sohail579]

I get this error can anyone help? Format unit command: Data protect FORMAT UNIT failed

[@goldenpen-ye4fo]

hello same problem

[@goldenpen-ye4fo]

any sulotion

[@anthonystrohmayer9191]

What about using Ubuntu os?

[@ArtofServer]

It should work just fine in Ubuntu as any other Linux OS, or even Windows, although I have not tried using Windows.

[@lvphuc133]

Can you help with my format as follows? sg_format --format --size=512 PD1 -v IBM-SSG IBM-SSGMSVJ1P6 7214 peripheral_type: disk [0x0] PROTECT=0 Unit serial number: ZAX152BX0000822150Z3 LU name: 5000c500301e9aec mode sense(10) cdb: [5a 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 fc 00] Mode Sense (block descriptor) data, prior to changes: Number of blocks=3030911576 [0xb4a80a58] Block size=528 [0x210] mode select(10) cdb: [55 11 00 00 00 00 00 00 1c 00] mode select(10): Fixed format, current; Sense key: Illegal Request Additional sense: Invalid field in parameter list Field replaceable unit code: 17 Sense Key Specific: Error in Data parameters: byte 13 bit 7 Try MODE SELECT again with SP=0 this time mode select(10) cdb: [55 10 00 00 00 00 00 00 1c 00] mode select(10): Fixed format, current; Sense key: Illegal Request Additional sense: Invalid field in parameter list Field replaceable unit code: 17 Sense Key Specific: Error in Data parameters: byte 13 bit 7 MODE SELECT command: Illegal request, type: sense key, apart from Invalid opcode ### Tried again with --six option ##### sg_format --format --size=512 --six -v PD1 IBM-SSG IBM-SSGMSVJ1P6 7214 peripheral_type: disk [0x0] PROTECT=0 Unit serial number: ZAX152BX0000822150Z3 LU name: 5000c500301e9aec mode sense(6) cdb: [1a 00 01 00 fc 00] Mode Sense (block descriptor) data, prior to changes: Number of blocks=3030911576 [0xb4a80a58] Block size=528 [0x210] mode select(6) cdb: [15 11 00 00 18 00] mode select(6): Fixed format, current; Sense key: Illegal Request Additional sense: Invalid field in parameter list Field replaceable unit code: 17 Sense Key Specific: Error in Data parameters: byte 9 bit 7 Try MODE SELECT again with SP=0 this time mode select(6) cdb: [15 10 00 00 18 00] mode select(6): Fixed format, current; Sense key: Illegal Request Additional sense: Invalid field in parameter list Field replaceable unit code: 17 Sense Key Specific: Error in Data parameters: byte 9 bit 7 MODE SELECT command: Illegal request, type: sense key, apart from Invalid opcode I've tried on both CentOS and Windows 10 Thanks

[@ArtofServer]

sorry, no idea.

[@counttoast2647]

No need to do this. I found an easyer way: just use the dd command in linux to overwrite the first few megabytes of the disk device and you can repartition and use like a new drive. dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/(device) bs=1M count=100

[@ArtofServer]

No, that won't work. I don't think you understand the sector size issue.

[@counttoast2647]

@@ArtofServer I might have missed something, but I could use my drive that way.

[@counttoast2647]

@@ArtofServer I will check out my drives. I assumed if not changed the drives wouldn't be usable. How can I quickly read out the layout in Linux?

[@ArtofServer]

@@counttoast2647 if your drives have non-standard sector size, you won't be able to write to it with anything, not even dd. If you are able to write to it, then you don't have this problem.

[@fistuchiis]

This helped a lot and i reformated various disks , but now i have 30 HGST 1.2TB HUC101212CSS600 "Model: HITACHI DKR5E-J1R2SS GCGCKZJHEV4H; Capacity: 2344225968 LBAs" that i reformated with and without --six parameter , also used the patched "setblocksize" program , and still i cant create a partition table on it. I have a SAS3082E-R card in IT MODE and in the output of dmesg i see: "Buffer I/O error on logical block 0,1,2 and 3 , lost async page write" FAILED Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE Sense Key : Aborted command [current] CDB: Write(10): 2a 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 08 00 Any Guidance ? Thx in advance and sorry for the spanglish ;)

[@ArtofServer]

sorry, no idea...

[@ernestotorres2652]

I have several Seagate XS1920SE70094 SSDs, all of them with physical sector 4096, but some of them with 512 logical sector and some others with 4096 logical sector. I´m unable to create RAIDs with them because difference in logical sector size. I´m succeed to format them with current logical size (512), but I have an error with the sector size change: root@localhost ~]# sg_format --format --size=4096 -v /dev/sg1 inquiry cdb: 12 00 00 00 24 00 IBM XS1920SE70094 4085 peripheral_type: disk [0x0] PROTECT=0 mode sense (10) cdb: 5a 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 fc 00 Mode Sense (block descriptor) data, prior to changes: Number of blocks=3750748848 [0xdf8fe2b0] Block size=512 [0x200] mode select (10) cdb: 55 11 00 00 00 00 00 00 1c 00 mode select (10): Fixed format, current; Sense key: Illegal Request Additional sense: Invalid field in parameter list Field replaceable unit code: 17 Sense Key Specific: Error in Data byte 13 bit 7 bad field in MODE SELECT (10) [root@localhost ~]# Any advice for me? Thanks in advance

[@ArtofServer]

sorry. try asking on other tech forums like servethehome.com.

[@QuranSam]

I have server dell r740 with raid h730p but have problem the hard disk can't show in your tools I try to show hard disk but can't see can you help me :)

[@ArtofServer]

H730P is a RAID controller, so you need to make sure you have configured RAID virtual drives first or nothing will show in your OS.

[@QuranSam]

@@ArtofServer I can’t add virtual raid in dell because can’t add hdd it’s see 0kb