SATA Spec Changes

The above image displays the difference between my Seagate X16 HDD working and not working… and not in the way you think.

TL/DR

TL/DR: The SATA power connector spec has changed from SATA 3.1 to 3.2+ where pin 3 (a previously standard 3v pin) is now used to signal the drive to sleep. Most Consumer PSUs including those newer than the spec change will provide 3v to pin 3 preventing the drive from spinning up, preventing the drive from showing up in BIOS or, the OS. This can be resolved with, a compatible PSU (no one wants to buy a new PSU just for a hard drive), finding a compatible adapter (some molex [old school] and SATA connectors are missing the 3rd pin), removing or covering pin 3 on your existing cables or HDDs, or by removing the 3 volt power wire from your SATA power cable (do this safely, 3v is not a lot of power but there is still potential for a cut wire to make contact where it should not.) I can't confirm that removing the 3v cable entirely (removing power from the first 3 pins) will work with all drives but it worked for me. Check your Hard Drives Spec sheet before cutting wires to see if it needs 3v power. 

Note: The pin count on the SATA power connector starts at the “L” notch or, the side closest to the SATA data connector. Thus, removing the power wire on this side of the connector resolves this issue (again for my Seagate x16 drives). Images included below on SATA power pinouts.

Note: This most likely only impacts "Enterprise" hard drives 

 Fumbling Around in the Dark

Come with me on a quick journey of discovery; where 3 brand new Seagate x16 HDDs failed to power on (spin up).

1.        Mounted and installed them in my server (epyc 7551p, 850w Thermaltake PSU circa 2016)

a.        SATA power from PSU direct, using vender provided SATA power

b.       Consumer grade SSD already running on these same power cables

c.        HDDs initially plugged into SATA ports 4-7, while SSDs consuming 1 m.2 slot and 4 SATA ports (0-3)

d.       HDDs were a no show in BIOS

e.        Tried removing the NVME drive in the first m.2 slot and moved on HDD to SATA-2 on the mother board. The other 2 HDDs remained in SATA 4-5

f.          Still Nothing

2.        Migrated one HDD to my desktop (amd 5900x, new pci gen 5 PSU, a working 4tb Seagate HDD)

a.        Removed existing HDD and installed x16 HDD in its place

b.       Still no spin up

c.        Remove and attempt to connect the hard drive using an old USB external drive circuit board. I usually keep this in my desk for testing drives or pulling data of drives destined for the scrap heap.

 i.        The power light starts flashing on the pcb and the drive does not spin.

d.       Fine, I’ll go dig up my actual usb drive dock and give that a go

i.        queue 20 mins of me digging around in the basement trying to find the dock and its power supply

e.        return to my office and set it all up. The x16 HDD spins!

i.        Its not formatted, no partition table

ii.        Format the drive

iii.       I know its not the issue but lets move back to SATA and try again

iv.        The drive fails to spin…

3.        Migrate the drive to another system, this one with a corsair 750w psu

a.        The drive still doesn’t power up

4.        What’s the difference between the USB dock and all my different power supplies?

a.        Break out the multimeter

i.        I pulled up a SATA power pinout

1.        I expect power should be:

a.        Pin 1-3: 3v

b.       Pin 4-6: ground / COM

c.        Pin 7-9: 5v

d.       Pin 10-12: ground / COM

e.        Pin 13-15: 12v

                                                                            ii.        Confirmed, the power supplies I have in my office are both reading correctly on the multimeter

                                                                          iii.       Power on the USB dock

2.        No power to any 3v pins

a.        Return to the power supply the x16 HDD is connected to

3.        Cut the 3v cable

4.        Boot the system and the drive spins!

5.        Check in the OS, the drive is available

Solution

I’ve solved my problem! But why, why, would my brand new HDD not power on, with 3 unique PSUs:

• Removing pin 3 power (in my case pin 1-3 power) the drive spins up, registers in BIOS and is available to the OS

•  Long story short, it’s a change to the SATA Power Spec.

  • Pin 3 is now used to signal the drive to power down, or not start

    •  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DevSlp

• As the old SATA spec provides 3v to the first 3 pins, the drive will never spin if you are not using compatible cabling

• This 2019 post provides lots of interesting information: https://forums.unraid.net/topic/84038-so-your-new-sas-or-sata-drive-wont-start-spin-up/