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Proliant ML350G6 losing USB Drives

Hi There!

We have a HP Proliant ML350G6 Tower Server with SBS 2008 (Fully Patched), and every few days (No pattern), the attached USB Western Digital 750GB Drives (2.5") disappear from the OS. A reboot fixes it for a few days. I can still see the usb drive in the system tray (But no volume), but I can't see it in disk management.

Anyone seen this before?
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Philip Elder
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Do the WD drives have some sort of power management involved. We have seen USB drives that disappear due to the on board power management turning them off and then not responding quick enough when SBS calls for the drive to initiate a backup.

Full size 3.5" drives with no power management features might be a better bet.

Philip
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networkn

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We have a number of identical sites without this issue, all using the same server and drives.

I have never had to change the power management settings for those servers.
The power management I speak of is the type that is built into the USB drive enclosure itself.

Change the USB port the drives plug into to see if the problem goes away.

Make sure that the USB settings in the OS are set to allow hot plug and not performance.

Change the drives and see if the behaviour continues. If it does, then look to the server's firmware and update it.

Suspect the USB ports of all else fails.

Philip
We are going to firmware upgrade the server in the coming few days and will revert back. Other steps have not helped.
Firmware Maintenance CD has been run, problem persists.

I can see the USB Device in the little icon in the system tray, it understands the name of the drive, but has no volumes.
If you can take that drive and plug it into one of the other servers at another site as you mentioned you have lots of them and the drive shows up as it should then it's pretty clear where the problem lies.

Philip
I'll request a drive from the client, but my gut says that if the problem is occurring across multiple drives on the same server, it's unlikely the drives that are at fault.

My only puzzling detail is that the drive is still seen as a USB Device, which almost makes it look like a software problem.
The opposite. If the drive works on another server then it is probably the USB ports and/or bus on the server board.

You could try removing the USB components in the Device Manager and rebooting to see if they get straightened out.

Philip
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