SAS hdd's not recognized in HP Z840 with H240 SAS controller card

[Steviewunda]

Hi - I added a H240 SAS controller card to my Z840 workstation (BIOS M60 v02.59) which I am configuring to be a backup server running Unraid. The original 1TB SAS hdd is recognized when attached to the H240 card, both in HP Smart Storage Administrator and Unraid, but the 3 new WD 20TB SAS hdd's are only recognized by Smart Storage Administrator, not Unraid. The H240 card is configured in HBA mode. Any advice gratefully received

Cheers,

Steve

[DGroves]

in this case i don't think it's a hardware issue, but rather a unraid issue with either the size of the 20TB drives  or the drives firmware

try posting in the unraid forum you should get some helpful information there

https://unraid.net/contact

https://forums.unraid.net/

[Steviewunda]

Thanks for the response

[Steviewunda]

I have also tried in a Windows 10 environment (I did a fresh install on the HP Z840) The Windows install routine saw the 20TB disks when attached to the H240 controller, but they are not visible in Explorer or Disk Management.  Someone on the Unraid forum said "Yep, that's a host managed SMR drive, and while there's some kernel and fs support (at least from btrfs) for those in recent kernels I'm not sure that Unraid supports them, also those drives should only be used with an OS that is aware of them, or performance will be terrible". So it doesn't appear to be only an Unraid issue - any suggestions regarding which OS (or SAS controller?) might be compatible?

Cheers,

Steve

[Steviewunda]

I found that the controller and drives were detected and able to be formatted in Ubuntu 22.10, but I have decided to sell the drives as I want to use Unraid for my OS. I will buy SATA drives to replace the SAS drives. Would 20TB SATA drives be compatible with the Z840's onboard SATA/SAS controller?

[DGroves · Accepted solution]

for your use, you want drives that use the "CSM" format not "SMR" 

https://www.easeus.com/knowledge-center/cmr-vs-smr-hard-drive.html

https://www.reichelt.com/magazin/en/guide/smr-cmr-which-hard-drive-is-best-for-which-purpose/