Adam Wunn
Level 1 (4 points)
Servers Enterprise

Q: 6TB drives won't mount after restart in Mac Pro 2012

The problem manifests itself when a 6TB HGST drive does NOT mount on the desktop nor appears in the Disk Utility after a reboot. The ONLY way I have figured out how to work around this problem is to shut down the computer and the open the case and slightly pull out one 6TB hard drive (i.e. enough to release it from the SATA connector on the logic board) and then push it back in. At that point, if I boot the computer any and all 6TB HGST drives installed in the computer will appear on the desktop until I restart the next time. I don't have to remove each and every drive to make them all appear, just one.

 

When I first experienced this issue, I assumed it was a hardware problem with that one computer, but I have now experienced it again with a different computer at the different company and with a 6TB HGST drive from a different production batch. Now that I have two data points, I want to test this configuration on other computers to see if I can figure out if it is more widespread than the existing two machines.

 

The similarities between the two machines are more than the differences. They are both Mac Pro 2010 5,1 models at their core, but they are also both the 2012 variant that was a slight upgrade from the 2010 model. They both have the shipping EFI firmware (which is the latest for that model). They both have 20GB of RAM and they both run Mac OS X 10.8.5. One machine is used for graphic design and the other is a server. They also both have more than one drive slot being used. The one machine that is the server have four drives. Two are 2GB drives used as the boot partitions. The last two are 6TB data drives. The other machine that is used for design has two 2TB drives for booting and backup and one 6TB drive for Time Machine (the fourth slot is empty). In both cases the 2TB drives are Toshiba drives (using the HGST derived manufacture process). Also in both cases the two 2TB drives are in slot 1 and 2 and the 6TB drive(s) are in 3 or 3 and 4. They both have ATI Radeon 5770 cards.  Both are plugged into Ethernet networks and do not have wireless turned on.

 

There are some differences too. The server has a number of external RAID boxes connected via an ESATA card. The other computer has nothing in the PCI-E slots. The server has an after market replacement DVD and the graphics machine has its stock DVD drive. The server machine runs OS X Server.app.

 

I have a number of resources at my disposal so I plan to do some further testing. That said, I don't have everything to be really thorough and would love some help from others whom are either experiencing this or just want to help.  Here is what I don't know and would like to test.

 

I have in my world Mac Pros that I can test at different customer locations. I can test a 1,1 easily, and I can also test a 3,1 and 4,1. I have those all available in my direct control right now. What I don't have is a 5,1 2010 model, but I can borrow one to test. I can also procure another 6TB HGST drive. What I don't have is a WD 6TB or other brand. I would love to know if this is specific to HGST or if it is a general problem for 6TB drives, Also, for that matter, I would love to see if this happens with 5TB drives. Has anyone else installed a HGST or WD 6TB and had mounting problems?

 

It would also be great to know if this issue is independent of OS. I plan to test 10.6, 10.8, and 10.10. Of course on the 1,1 Mac Pro I can't test past 10.7. I also would like to know if it matters that a 2TB drive is present and even if that drive is a Toshiba or other brand and even the quantity of drives and their slot position.  I  hazily remember trying to move drives around in slots when I first encountered this problem. I also wonder if different models of the 6TB drive may behave differently (i.e. NAS versus Enterprise).

 

I plan to post my results when I am done with the testing.

Mac Pro, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.5)

Posted on Jul 16, 2015 11:26 AM

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Adam Wunn

Q: 6TB drives won't mount after restart in Mac Pro 2012

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  • by lllaass,

    lllaass lllaass Jul 16, 2015 12:51 PM in response to Adam Wunn
    Level 10 (188,143 points)
    Desktops
    Jul 16, 2015 12:51 PM in response to Adam Wunn

    Are you using the standard sleds for the 8 TB drives?

    If so are you using shortened mounting screws? If yo are then that might prevent the HD from properly aligning with the sled and thus it will not be aligned with the connector on the logic board.

    OWC now sell a sled that uses the alternate mounting hols in the drive to prevent that problem.

  • by kahjot,

    kahjot kahjot Jul 16, 2015 2:42 PM in response to lllaass
    Level 4 (1,342 points)
    Desktops
    Jul 16, 2015 2:42 PM in response to lllaass

    http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/MPRODBKTLG6/

  • by Adam Wunn,

    Adam Wunn Adam Wunn Jul 16, 2015 6:38 PM in response to lllaass
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Servers Enterprise
    Jul 16, 2015 6:38 PM in response to lllaass

    I appreciate the thought. I am aware of the problem with the sleds and from my understanding is that the problem occurs with some of the newer drives that have physical differences imposed by design changes (i.e. screw holes in a different spot) and cases that are shallower and therefore they have shorter screw holes. I know that this is the case with Western Digital drives. In my case I buy HGST drives and they are the traditional size and have screw holes in the exact same location as older drives. The drives fit perfectly in the sled and slide in a connect properly (at least it seems) and I can immediately format or mount a drive that is plugged in with the traditional sled. I can also leave that drive plugged in and working without incident until I restart the computer. It would seem to me that IF there were an issue, it would either be a physical impediment (i.e. I can't plug the drive in or the screw holes were in the wrong spot) or I would have some intermittent issues. At this point with the server that I have experienced this issue with, I have left it for over a month running without any issue. It only manifests if I restart the computer. I don't see how using an alternative bracket is going to make a difference. Maybe I am missing something and it will work, but if so, please someone explain it to me. I am willing to buy the bracket to test it, but it seems that my issue is different from the issue some people were experiencing with the Western Digital drive. Thanks again for the insight.

  • by Grant Bennet-Alder,

    Grant Bennet-Alder Grant Bennet-Alder Jul 16, 2015 9:59 PM in response to Adam Wunn
    Level 9 (60,774 points)
    Desktops
    Jul 16, 2015 9:59 PM in response to Adam Wunn

    large sized drives (over 2.2TB) have been supported since Mac OS X 10.4.4.

     

    What has been a problem since 10.8.4 is a problem ERASing Internal drives over 2.2TB. They are set up as Logical Volume Groups and further partitioning and manipulation is impossible.

     

    My speculation is that this feature has been partially repaired. Not in 10.8.5 it is not.

     

    In Terminal, could you do a:

     

    diskutil list 

    diskutil cs list

     

    and post the output for one of the troublesome drives?

  • by Adam Wunn,

    Adam Wunn Adam Wunn Jul 16, 2015 10:34 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Servers Enterprise
    Jul 16, 2015 10:34 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

    Thanks for the info and idea. Here is the terminal output. I see that one of the drives is reporting as a logical group. I am assuming that you suspected that was the issue? Is that somehow keeping the drives from mounting without intervention? From my experience, I have had issues reformatting drives that were erroneously identified as "logical volume groups" in the past and it took some fiddling to get them to reformat.

     

    /dev/disk1

       #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER

       0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *6.0 TB     disk1

       1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk1s1

       2:          Apple_CoreStorage                         6.0 TB     disk1s2

       3:                 Apple_Boot Boot OS X               134.2 MB   disk1s

     

    /dev/disk4

       #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER

       0:                  Apple_HFS Data Backup            *6.0 TB     disk4

     

     

    +-- Logical Volume Group CB1E5D46-005D-42CD-971C-70B5FBA91D8C

        =========================================================

        Name:         Data Backup

        Status:       Online

        Size:         6000831152128 B (6.0 TB)

        Free Space:   0 B (0 B)

        |

        +-< Physical Volume 2221153D-CB65-4DB7-813C-BB958B6ECE92

        |   ----------------------------------------------------

        |   Index:    0

        |   Disk:     disk1s2

        |   Status:   Online

        |   Size:     6000831152128 B (6.0 TB)

        |

        +-> Logical Volume Family 4A1FFC18-2C36-4CAE-A80A-33B20278AAE3

            ----------------------------------------------------------

            Encryption Status:       Unlocked

            Encryption Type:         None

            Conversion Status:       NoConversion

            Conversion Direction:    -none-

            Has Encrypted Extents:   No

            Fully Secure:            No

            Passphrase Required:     No

            |

            +-> Logical Volume 4A6FD923-32AB-4712-B199-E1B7157A5749

                ---------------------------------------------------

                Disk:               disk4

                Status:             Online

                Size (Total):       6000512376832 B (6.0 TB)

                Size (Converted):   -none-

                Revertible:         No

                LV Name:            Data Backup

                Volume Name:        Data Backup

                Content Hint:       Apple_HFS

  • by Grant Bennet-Alder,

    Grant Bennet-Alder Grant Bennet-Alder Jul 17, 2015 8:02 AM in response to Adam Wunn
    Level 9 (60,774 points)
    Desktops
    Jul 17, 2015 8:02 AM in response to Adam Wunn

    Yes, I am suspicious that Logical Volume Groups are the source of your trouble. Once you have eliminated physical alignment problems, there have been no other pervasive issues with very large drives reported here.

     

    Readers have typically not been able to do anything with drives set up as Logical Volume Group, unless they intended to create a Fusion Drive or use all-disk encryption with File Vault.

     

    The Logical Volume partitions can be deleted through careful use of Terminal. Typically opening a second window for cutting-and-pasting the long ID strings from diskutil cs list to delete them using diskutil in another window.

     

    Readers can track down the old thread with that procedure if you would like to try that.

  • by Adam Wunn,

    Adam Wunn Adam Wunn Jul 17, 2015 1:11 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Servers Enterprise
    Jul 17, 2015 1:11 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

    This makes a lot of sense. I really appreciate the help. I think you have put me on the right track. I have done some additional reading and found the process I plan to use to resolve this issue. http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/136590/how-can-i-delete-a-partition-cor estorage-logical-volume-from-the-terminal

     

    The good news is that only one of the volumes is reporting being a part of a logical disk group and it happens to be a single partition backup drive that is not hosting live data. I also have at least one other backup so I think I am pretty safe to try this process.

     

    I will either try this on the server backup drive in the next two weeks OR I will will try it on the other machine as that may be much easier to test the process and get results faster. I will report my results.

  • by Matthew Wilson5,Helpful

    Matthew Wilson5 Matthew Wilson5 Jul 18, 2015 10:31 AM in response to Adam Wunn
    Level 1 (35 points)
    Jul 18, 2015 10:31 AM in response to Adam Wunn

    I've had the same issue with a 6TB Hitachi NAS edition (7200rpm) that I use for Time Machine (on a Mac Pro 4.1 although upgraded now). It was formatted as a GUID single volume with disk utility.

     

    There was never an issue with the Hitachi 3TB and 4TB disks I've got and physically the 6TB installed fine with the stock drive sled (I actually only read about the different screw locations on some models later).

     

    Once recognised it works fine and as I sleep my Mac usually it isn't an issue but whenever I install an update that needs a restart I then have to immediately do a shutdown and cold start after this to get the drive recognised again.

     

    Hitachi support said "Based on the configuration you are using, it seems that the 6TB disk doesn't have enough time to spin up on reboot in comparison with the 3 and 4 TB disks. The firmware update is not related to this issue, it is more a capacity related issue."


    At some point I'll try another brand of 6TB but at the time this was the only affordable 7200rpm model. 

  • by Matthew Wilson5,Helpful

    Matthew Wilson5 Matthew Wilson5 Jul 18, 2015 10:36 AM in response to Matthew Wilson5
    Level 1 (35 points)
    Jul 18, 2015 10:36 AM in response to Matthew Wilson5

    FYI Thinking about it I also added a 5TB Toshiba drive to a Mac Pro 1.1 at work more recently and haven't seen the issue with that.

  • by Nadir of Moscow,

    Nadir of Moscow Nadir of Moscow Jul 19, 2015 2:16 AM in response to Adam Wunn
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 19, 2015 2:16 AM in response to Adam Wunn

    I confirm same behavior on my 2010 MacPro 5.1 12-core 2.93 Ghz with Hitachi HGST 6TB NAS drives (revision 0S03840).

    I bought these drives late in 2014 after glorious review at  diglloyed.com.

    I had 100% repeatable problem - these drives mount correctly ONLY AFTER COLD START.

    Any attempt to restart ( without full stop) computer result in no physical drives seen by computer (as reported by Apple System information utility).

    I pulled these Hitachi HGST 6TB NAS drives and replaced them with Hitachi HGST 6TB HELIUM drives.

    No problems since that - only two useless 6 Hitachi HGST 6TB NAS drives to sell.

     

    I had also 4 Hitachi HGST 4TB NAS drives istalled in the same MacPro - never a problem.

  • by G M D THREE,

    G M D THREE G M D THREE Jul 21, 2015 12:13 PM in response to Adam Wunn
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 21, 2015 12:13 PM in response to Adam Wunn

    Same problem here. Mac Pro 2012. OS 10.8.5

    Got two 6TB HGST NAS. I used the drives for few months in a external USB3 dock, and they worked just fine. I installed them internally.

    They mounted fine on initial boot up, but after restart they didn't mount.

    I have two others in my server that is still running Snow Leopard, no problem there.

     

    Thanx for all the feedback guys, the post here, where very helpfull.

     

    ///

  • by Adam Wunn,

    Adam Wunn Adam Wunn Jul 21, 2015 4:56 PM in response to Matthew Wilson5
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Servers Enterprise
    Jul 21, 2015 4:56 PM in response to Matthew Wilson5

    Matthew,

     

    That is good to know. I was thinking that a 5GB could be a good alternative in some cases. Thanks for sharing.

  • by Adam Wunn,

    Adam Wunn Adam Wunn Jul 21, 2015 5:12 PM in response to G M D THREE
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Servers Enterprise
    Jul 21, 2015 5:12 PM in response to G M D THREE

    Nadir,

     

    I appreciate the tip about the "He" drives. I think I will try one with a customer and see how it goes. One of the customers can return their drive but the other one can't. I might be stuck with this issue in their case. Sigh! I guess I will have to punt.

  • by Adam Wunn,

    Adam Wunn Adam Wunn Jul 21, 2015 5:11 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Servers Enterprise
    Jul 21, 2015 5:11 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

    Grant,

     

    Thanks again for your help. I ran the procedure and was able to convert the logical volume to a HFS+ Apple Partition Scheme (GUID), but that did not solve the problem. It looks to be a problem between the Mac Pro and this particular NAS drive, so I guess I am going to buy another drive in the future for customers.

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