Replacement of Sentinel DS6100 Backplane/ HDD mount

My recently out of warranty Sentinel DS6100 12TB suffered a power surge (even with battery back up/surge protector) which burnt a portion of the printed circuit board backplane which the HDD and BootDrives connect to. I ended up buying a DS5100 4TB (one business day turnaround) and transferred the top resting mother board and swapped out all the drives and it is all working perfectly. I have the time now (the office is up and running) to try to find a replacement for the backplane pcb but have not had any luck in finding it and WD support said they don’t sell those components and I have exhausted my resources. I would like to have use of the nearly 90% of the hardware I purchased though am also grateful I have a working server. Any thoughts?

Hello there,

I don’t have this specific information, perhaps another user can share some insight on this and help you out with you question.

yea, I dunno. I looked a lil bit and can’t seem to find a motherboard. My box is not up now, but I think it uses a Marvell Raid Chipset, but all I find only supports raid 0,1 and not 5 which the DS did. Though if you picked storage pools instead of onboard Raid would not matter much.

server 2012R2 is very hardware independent/friendly. I think what I would do is either shut the box down and image the C: drive to another disc and simply stick that disk in any box you want and see if it will boot. Actually I am 99.9% sure it will boot. What I am not sure about is activation. If you have a COA with a number that should work. You could also use the built-in windows server backup and do a BMR to different hardware. OEM software is tied to the hardware “legally” but my understanding is it is allowed to move if replacement hardware is not available.

You need to start testing now/acquiring hardware to be ready if it dies. If you are worried about transferring oem software you could purchase a copy of Essentials $425 and move it wherever.

Because only the printed circuit board that lies long the back side of the hard drive bays was damaged, I basically bought the DS4100 and removed the topset motherboard and all the drives and replaced them with the 6100 components since ONLY the HDD backplane PCB on the DS6100 was damaged. Subsequently it all booted up fine with know loss of data or reauthorizing of the OS. I just need to find a replacement of the printed circuit board for the back plane which all the HDD plug into (4 bays + 2 boot drive) so I can utilize the DS4100 components that are good. in the old box.

I understand what you are looking for but I don’t think you will be able to find it. You can keep an eye on Ebay for a unit someone is dumping.

I was suggesting alternatives so you would have a path forward.

I have a ds4000 with a bad fan assemble, but the PCB is all fine and so is the box itself. Let me know if this can be of use to the individual needing it.
Thanks,
Bob

Bob,
you should hold onto it in case you need parts :slight_smile:

If I find a used/busted sentinel to replace the the backplane pcb, should it be a 5100/6100 model (2 boot drive connectors and 4 HDD data drive connectors)?

I am just checking in…Wondered if anyone found a place to buy a replacement printed circuit board backplane which the HDD and BootDrives connect to for the Sentinel DS6100/DS5100.

I have one, if you’re still interested.

Anthony,

Thant would be awesome. Terms?

Regards,

Robert Melton

Shoot me an email at [Deleted-Privacy] at yahoo

Hello Anthony,

Do you have any extra DS6100 BackPlane? mine is damaged and i need to replace it.

Regards,

Yes, I have a spare DS6100 that it reboots once awhile by itself, so I just stripped the RAM for my other unit. Now it’s just sitting in the closet. I’m sure there is no problem with the back plate. WD deleted my email previously. What’s your offer?

That would be great!
100 EUR? where you from? i’m from Lisbon (Portugal)

I’m from the US. That will be too expensive to ship! I’m guessing ~40 USD and it will cost too much to return should it doesn’t work for you. Anyway if you still want it, we can work something out.

Hi Antony,

That would be acceptable. I think i will have to take the risk.

Do you have an ebay account? Maybe you could sell the item on ebay and I would buy it from there. What do you think?

If that unit is still available please let me know as I might need one to replace a failing backplane.
justin AT jwt-tech(dot)com