[TriLUG] 512/4096B cluster size incompatibilities

[Joseph Mack NA3T via TriLUG]

On Tue, 1 Jan 2019, David Burton wrote:

>> after swapping slots in the external enclosure

.
.

> *Whoa!  This is the drive that WAS looking good; after swapping it to the
> other slot it now shows WRONG sector size and WRONG firmware!*


.
.

> *This is the drive that WAS goofed up; now it's fine!*


.
.

>
> *No!  The problem is with the external enclosure slot.  The drives are both
> fine!*

Well thank you David,

I have

o an eSATA single slot external enclosure (my control enclosure)

o a usb/eSATA external dual slot external enclosure (the one where I noticed 
the problem).

Between the two enclosures, I have three slots to put a drive in.

I have two identical 2TB model Seagate drives, bought the same time, type 
ST2000DM001-1ER164

In one of the usb/eSATA external slots (same result whether connecting through 
usb or eSATA), either drive is seen as

o 512/512 logical/physical

o firmware version 0958

o is not properly detected by smartctl

o fdisk partitions it as 512B sectors



In the other slot in the dual slot external usb enclosure and in the eSATA 
single slot external enclosure, either drive is

o 512/4096 logical/physical

o firmware version CC26

o properly detected by smartcle

o fdisk partitions it as 4096B sectors

So it is the enclosure. David picked that I didn't do the swap right. Thanks 
for your diligence there David.

I'm now surprised that Vantec, the enclosure manufacturer hasn't noticed this. 
They've been producing external drives for at least a decade.

Under Win7 neither drive is detected through the eSATA port, whereas Linux 
detects both drives.

Steven suggested that I look at the SeaTools by Seagate. The tools scanned for 
usb drives, but didn't detect them, even though Win7 sees them in the disk 
management window. From my only other time using them, I wasn't too surprised. I 
wasn't encouraged enough to try the fast format software.

I'm surprised that one disk will be formatted with 512B sectors in one slot and 
as 4096 sectors in another slot. I has assumed that the sector size is hardware 
dependant.

Thanks David for your continuing efforts here.

Can anyone recommend a dual slot external usb/eSATA enclosure?

Joe


-- 
Joseph Mack NA3T EME(B,D), FM05lw North Carolina
jmack (at) wm7d (dot) net - azimuthal equidistant
map generator at http://www.wm7d.net/azproj.shtml
Homepage http://www.austintek.com/ It's GNU/Linux!