6TB Western Digital (WD Black) Performance HD

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Level 2

289 points

6TB Western Digital (WD Black) Performance HD

I upgraded recently to one of the newer 4TB WD Black hard drives and it has been working great.

So, I purchased one of the new 6TB WD Black (WD6001FZWX) drives.

When I install it in one of the drive bays in my MacPro Tower (2012 model), Disk Utility sees it but will not initialize it. Disk Utility tells me that the "Operation Failed".

Western Digital tells me that this drive should work in my machine.

Has anyone had this experience?

Even though my profile says I am running 10.11.1, I just applied the update to 10.11.2. So, everything is up to date.

Suggestions?

Mac Pro, OS X El Capitan (10.11.1), 8GB RAM, 256GB SS boot drive

Posted on Dec 16, 2015 6:24 PM

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Answer 1

lllaass

Level 10

210,519 points

Dec 17, 2015 1:21 AM in response to Craig Kaplan

Are you using an original sled?

The depth of the mount holes in the disk are shorter since there is more stuff inside the drive. Using normal length screws can cause incomplete engagement of the contacts on the drive with the contacts in the logic board.

have you tried a different bay?

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Answer 2

Dec 17, 2015 8:45 AM in response to lllaass

If you ERASE the drive in an Internal bay, Disk Utility after 10.8.3 creates a Core Storage Logical Volume Group on the Drive, and it cannot be partitioned further or erased again.

You can check by typing at the Terminal Prompt $:

diskutil cs list

This will list the Core Storage partitions, if any. You will need the listed UUIDs later to remove them.

Solutions include using an older (pre 10.8.4) System or Installer/Utilities thumb drive to ERASE again, or ERASEing in an External enclosure.

If you are really stuck, you can use Terminal Commands to delete the extraneous Logical Volume group partitioning and move forward. If you need this, post back for additional help -- it will take some research to find the references.

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Answer 3

Craig Kaplan Author

Level 2

289 points

Dec 17, 2015 9:14 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Could this still be possible in the case of a new drive? The drive I purchased was a brand new drive mechanism sealed in a static-free bag.

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Answer 4

lllaass

Level 10

210,519 points

Dec 17, 2015 9:35 AM in response to Craig Kaplan

What was the format of the new drive? Typically they are of the PC NTFS format

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Answer 5

Dec 17, 2015 9:40 AM in response to Craig Kaplan

If there are no Logical Volume groups, the output will be:

$ diskutil cs list

No CoreStorage logical volume groups found

$

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Answer 6

Craig Kaplan Author

Level 2

289 points

Dec 17, 2015 10:00 AM in response to lllaass

It was an uninitialized new drive.

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Answer 7

Dec 17, 2015 10:30 AM in response to Craig Kaplan

what does Disk Utility say for Partition Map Scheme or Format?

are there any Volumes shown?

Mac OS X does not want to delete non-empty Volumes off a drive owned by a different Operating System.

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Answer 8

Craig Kaplan Author

Level 2

289 points

Dec 17, 2015 10:35 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

No volumes shown

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Answer 9

Craig Kaplan Author

Level 2

289 points

Dec 17, 2015 10:36 AM in response to lllaass

Tried another bay, same result.

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Answer 10

Craig Kaplan Author

Level 2

289 points

Dec 17, 2015 11:08 AM in response to Craig Kaplan

It looks like this is the solution to my problem:

Here is the link for the sled: http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/MPRODBKTLG6/

Apparently, the standard drive alignment has changed with the advent of these new larger drives. The replacement sled allows these new drives to interface properly in my machine.

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Answer 11

Dec 17, 2015 11:45 AM in response to Craig Kaplan

That replacement sled is only the solution if BOTH of the following are true:

1) the sled you have does not allow four screws to be used, and tightened so that the washers are snug, but not mashed.

2) with the sled you are using, the drive is so badly misaligned that the connectors do not mate, and the drive is not seen AT ALL.

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Answer 12

Craig Kaplan Author

Level 2

289 points

Dec 22, 2015 5:30 PM in response to Craig Kaplan

It looks like Grant was on target with his comments. The replacement sled did not resolve the problem.

Now, I am wondering if there is a limitation on my machine (Mac Pro [mid 2012]).

Here are the specs directly from MacTracker:

MacPro5,1

Model Number A1289

EMC 2314

Order Number MD770LL/A (Quad-Core)

Does anyone know if this machine supports the Western Digital Black 6TB drive mechanisms? I have one of the 4TB mechanisms in the machine now and it is working fine.

Can someone tell me if this drive will work in my machine? If I can confirm this, then I will ask them to replace the drive as there must be something wrong with it.

Thank you.

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Answer 13

Dec 22, 2015 5:53 PM in response to Craig Kaplan

Your Drive is fully compatible with your Mac. The Mac Pro silver tower running any version after 10.4 Panther supports drives over 8 million Terabytes, including drives with 4K block size.

But if you ERASE the drive in an Internal bay with 10.8.4 or later, a bug in Disk Utility means the drive cannot be partitioned or erased further (because it creates a Core Storage Logical Volume Group).

Solutions include:

• erasing again in an External enclosure (which can re-erase and does not incur the Bug)

• using a system or Installer thumb drive from 10.7 or early 10.8 (10.6 DVD will not boot the Mac Pro 5,1)

• deleting the Core Storage partions using Terminal

• erasing the drive again in Terminal [not recommended because there are no safeguards to keep you from erasing the wrong drive]

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Answer 14

Dec 22, 2015 6:21 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Can you post a screenshot of the Disk Utility window with the drive selected by Hardware-name and what it is showing for the status, bay number, drive type, formatting, etc that used to be shown along the bottom of that pane?

How to take a screenshot on your Mac - Apple Support

How to Post a screenshot to the Apple Discussion Forums

.

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Answer 15

Craig Kaplan Author

Level 2

289 points

Dec 22, 2015 6:29 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

If the bug is in Disk Utility, why couldn't I initialize it using Drive Genius 4 (which I have licensed on this machine)? Using Drive Genius 4, I got the same result as the initialization failed.

I do not have an "installer thumb drive". But, I think I do have an old installation disc from Lion (Mac OS 10.7.5). Could I boot the machine while holding the "C" key with that disc in the optical drive? If I could get the system to boot what way, would I then be able to initialize that drive?

Here is what I have that shows the drive ID when installed in the system (it is currently out):

I hope this is the information you wanted to see.

Please let me know if booting the machine from the Lion disc will work. I have a feeling that OS may be too old to boot this machine. But, could you confirm.

Thanks.

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