Have you tried to run repair the database from the right column client computer backup tasks?
Thanks to TheWaterbug for the information. I was interested in the suggestion made to select an RE drive, given that the 6100 unit I purchased has SE drives, which is how they were marketed as I recall. I wonder if the whitelist mod procedure also works if a currently available SE drive which doesn’t match the unmodified whitelist is used. (Or, are the currently available SE drives “less compatible” than the RE drive recommended?) Also, are there any issues with using a combination of SE and RE class data drives in the same box.
Is it possible to edit the Drivelist.xml file manually to add an unsupported drive? How do you get the required information for the drive to put into the Drivelist.xml file? (power shell or wmi query of some sort?)
What is needed to apply the settings from the new file? (Is a reboot required or just restart a service or run a script to identify the new list or maybe run the DriveList.msi with a switch?)
I replaced the boot drives with SSD to speed up the boot process (it took forever with the stock drives) and now I have to disable the alarm notification because the drives are listed as unsupported and the beeping drives the office crazy.
Any help would be appreciated.
Thank you
The WD support tech wrote the new whitelist for me. The files are linked, above.
I restarted the unit, and then the drives were recognized.
Regarding the subsequent inability to increase the size of the Storage Space, I ended up “fixing” it by nuking and restoring the unit from scratch, and then re-adding all of my clients. I lost my entire backup history, but now it’s been running fine for months.
I want to fiddle with this drive list to add support for a 3rd-party 2.5" SSD in the boot drive slot, but I can’t figure out how WD gets the Size argument. I pulled the original 2TB drive that was supplied with the Sentinel and plugged into my old WHS box to see the SMART data:
The reported capacity of the drive, 2,000,396,321,280 bytes doesn’t match the entry in the whitelist, 2,000,398,934,016 bytes:
<Drive Model="WDC WD2000F9YZ-09N20L0"
Description="Enterprise Storage 2 TB"
Size="2000398934016"
Category="Preferred"
ItemProfile="EnterpriseStorageProfile60"/>
The difference, 2,612,736 bytes, is small, but I’m sure it’s significant, somehow. It’s 29 x 36 x 7, which is a very strange number.
Is there fixed overhead for HDDs that’s common across drives?
I want to create a whitelist entry for a Samsung SSD, but I don’t know how to specify the size.
I don’t know that size matters. I would just get close and give it a try
I’m guessing that WD added that parameter just as a second verification to make it harder to add “unsupported” drives. But that’s just a theory.
I suppose I could try a quick experiment by changing the “size” parameter on my WD2000F9YZ-09N20L0 entries and see if the unit complains when I boot it up.
But what will happen to my Storage Space if 2 of the 4 drives suddenly disappear because they’re “not supported”? If this is a harmless experiment that I can un-do just by un-editing the whitelist, then I’ll try it.
But if it causes changes to my SS then I’m really reluctant to try it.
I thought you were going to add the ssd to the white list, backup, swap drives, and try a restore.
I think the size is just info displayed in the dashboard. I do not see how they could inject that into the file system.
But you data takes priority over my guesses.
Ah, you’re correct. During the experiment I can remove the 4 data drives that make up the Storage Space, just to be sure they don’t get affected.
The only reason I’m guessing the “size” is used for verification is that there’s otherwise no need to specify it. Why would WD need to get the size from an XML file when the hardware gives it to them? The only reason I can think of is so they can say, “Nope. Doesn’t match.” But I could be wrong.
Success! I did a Server Recovery to an “unsupported” 500 GB SSD in place of my failed factory boot drive (320 GB WDC AV drive), and it was reporting “Invalid Drive” on the LCD and “Unsupported” “Incompatible Drive” in the dashboard:
So I created a new whitelist entry:
<Drive Model="Samsung SSD 850 EVO 500GB"
Description="Enterprise Storage 500 GB"
Size="500107862016"
Category="Preferred"
ItemProfile="EnterpriseStorageProfile65" />
inserted it into the DriveList.xml file, rebooted, and voila!
I wasn’t certain about what “Size” to put in the entry, due to the mismatch (see above, several posts) between the SMART report and the DriveList entry for the factory 2 TB drive (2,000,398,934,016 - 2,000,396,321,280 = 2,612,736 ), so I also calculated that same mismatch for the factory boot drive, and the difference is the same (320,072,933,376 - 320,070,320,640 = 2,612,736).
So I assumed the same “error” would be valid for my SSD, and calculated 500,105,249,280 + 2,612,736 = 500,107,862,016 for the whitelist entry (without the commas).
As a science experiment I also edited the whitelist to have a very incorrect size, e.g. 400,107,862,016, and it didn’t seem to make any difference. It still shows up as Preferred and Normal, and with a correct size of 500.11 GB in the Dashboard.
Then I restored the Size to the original value and mis-named the Drive Model =“ASamsung SSD 850 EVO 500GB”, and now it’s “Unsupported” and “Incompatible Drive” again.
I then tried Drive Model =“Samsung SSD 850 EVO 500GBA” (with the error at the end, to test how the parser works), and it’s “Unsupported” and “Incompatible Drive” again.
Finally I tried Drive Model =“Samsung SSD 850 EVO 500G” (with a missing char), and again it’s “Unsupported” and “Incompatible Drive”.
So editing the whitelist seems to be fairly straightforward. I haven’t tried every single experiment, but it looks like the “Drive Model” parameter is the important part, and it has to match exactly.
Hi,
I tried to edit the DriveList.xml file, but it appears that I don’t have write access to it, would you please let me know what I need to do to be able to edit the file? TIA
Copy DriveList.xml to your Desktop, make a backup copy of the original, edit the new version there using NotePad, and then copy the new version back to the original location. Windows will ask you for an Admin OK when copying it back, but that’s expected behavior.
so Bizarre, trying to whitelist a very similar drive my whitelist entry looks identical to yours with the exception of model and size
Samsung SSD 850 PRO 512GB
and size at 511515295744
It simply won’t whitelist this drive under boot drives.
2.2.10.18
Can you paste in the exact entry from your whitelist?
Feeling foolish, went to copy the text from the .xml file and realized my ctrl+c and ctrl+v skills were lacking. I managed to delete the closing tag on the entry above the one i copy/pasta. Added it back, restarted and voila, a green text Preferred drive!
