Barracuda XT, Barracuda, Barracuda Green, DiamondMax and other desktop SATA and IDE drives

[Paul Ayoub]

Hi,

I really need help, and hope I can explain this well.

I have four of these Barracuda XT 3tb drives, (st33000651AS).

I want to use them to backup a huge video library.

I am using a 2011 i7 Macbook Pro running OS X 10.6.6 Snow Leopard.

The drives came with a Master Boot Record partition.

I formatted these drives as OS Extended (Journaled) with a GUID Partition Map.

I did this while connected with each of these in turn to my Mac through a Quad Interface Now Voyager Q Docking Station, utilizing the eSATA port, connected to the MBP through a expresscard34 eSATA adapter.  (Note* This card only allows me to connect two of them at a time.)

The first problem is the drives are only recognized when plugged in through the eSATA interface.

If I try to connect them using USB it says the disk is unreadable and asks if I want to initialize it.

(If I clicked yes, it would open "Disk Utility" and show the disk, (all 3tb), but would "think" it still had a Master Boot Record, partition, even though I had clearly formatted it as GUID.

If I try connecting the drive with Firewire 800 it's even worse. If I can even get the MBP to see it, it only recognizes 800GB'S!

As my eSATA expresscard only allows two connections, I need these drives to be readable across at least one other interface, preferably Firewire 800. All while I wait for Thunderbolt enclosures to be available. (Will the computer through Thunderbolt port once available also not recognize these drives?)

Also, this problem works the same in reverse.

If formatted through USB, w/ GUID and OS Extended, it also asks to be initialized when connected through eSATA.

And, there is no point bothering to format through Firewire800, because it only sees 800GB of it.

Thanks for any and all help.

Paul Ayoub

Naugatuck, CT

[Cantbecanit]

TBH I don't use a Mac at all and have very limited knowledge of how they tick, but given it's 3TB drives I suspect the MB chipset is struggling with what could be described as a suprise visitor, I would check for the latest hardware info on your machine before wasting anymore time with it.

[Paul Ayoub]

Hi and thanks for the reply.

"but given it's 3TB drives I suspect the MB chipset is struggling with what could be described as a suprise visitor, I would check for the latest hardware info on your machine before wasting anymore time with it."

The computer is brand new:

17" "Thunderbolt" 2011 Macbook Pro i7 2.2ghz Quad core with 8gb of RAM and 750gb HD

Please let me know what else you need to know.

The drive is recognized. I imagine if I was able to just stick to a single interface I wouldn't even have known there was a problem. But I am concerned about the integrity of my data...

There is no clicking. And there is plenty of power.

I don't think the drives are 7200.11

Here is a scan of the label of one. The four drives are identical.

None of these drives have been damaged or dropped. You just have to take my word.

I have also tried different enclosures in addition to the Voyager Q Docking Station.

Same result.

Why does it not recognize the formatting when the interface is changed?

It doesn't lose the formatting.

If I format and upload files through eSATA and then try to connect with firewire, or vide versa, it asks to be intialized and thinks it has MBR as it's partition.

If I plug it back in with eSATA, everything is there as it was. All my files, on a Guid partition formatted as OS X Extended.

"GOOGLE HELPS AS WELL Y'KNOW"

I have googled the beejeezus out of this, and have found nothing.

But, it is hard to explain, so therefore hard to search the right word combo.

Thanks for any and all help!

[Cantbecanit]

It is a strange one I admit, and I've not had a chance to play with a 3TB drive yet, so what I meant was although your machine is new it still might've been manufactured before 3TB drives were released, if you remember back when drives started getting larger there was a limit on what would show for a while until they fixed it with large disk support, it's a comparison with that I working along, my hands are tied a bit due to no mac experience nor 3TB drive experience, I think WD do a 3TB drive now as well, might be an idea to search their support forum and see if there is similar issues with their drives on a mac as well and maybe a solution, I assume this bad boy is a 6Gbts one speeds wise as well? this is also new tech right now, but could explain a few things as you say it seems to work fine on eSata which iirc has similar speed rating's to 6GBts.

Found this on the Wiki  ....     

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA

Aimed at the consumer market, eSATA enters an external storage market already served by the USB and FireWire interfaces. Most external hard-disk-drive cases with FireWire or USB interfaces use either PATA or SATA drives and "bridges" to translate between the drives' interfaces and the enclosures' external ports, and this bridging incurs some inefficiency. Some single disks can transfer 157 MB/s during real use,[8] about four times the maximum transfer rate of USB 2.0 or FireWire 400 (IEEE 1394a) and almost twice as fast as the maximum transfer rate of FireWire 800, though the S3200 FireWire 1394b spec reaches ~400 MB/s (3.2 Gbit/s). Finally, some low-level drive features, such as S.M.A.R.T., may not operate through some USB [2] or FireWire or USB+FireWire bridges. eSATA does not suffer from these issues provided that the controller manufacturer (and its drivers) presents eSATA drives as ATA devices, rather than as "SCSI" devices (as has been common with Silicon Image, JMicron, and NVIDIA nForce drivers for Windows Vista); In those cases, even SATA drives will not have low-level features accessible. USB 3.0's 4.8 Gbit/s and Firewire's future 6.4 Gb/s (768 MB/s) will be faster than eSATA I, but the eSATA version of SATA 6G will operate at 6.0 Gb/s (the term SATA III is being eschewed by the SATA-IO to avoid confusion with SATA II 3.0 Gbit/s, which was colloquially referred to as "SATA 3G" [bps] or "SATA 300" [MB/s] since 1.5 Gbit/s SATA I and 1.5 Gbit/s SATA II were referred to as both "SATA 1.5G" [b/s] or "SATA 150" [MB/s]). Therefore, they will operate with negligible differences between them.[19]

Seems FireWire is slower, this is the only reason I can think of that the Mac has set the drive up to be read from eSata and when you use FireWire instead the driver throws a fit, this is only my theory btw so it could be completely wrong, but right now it seems to be the only logical reason, try a google of Sata 3 vs FireWire, there may be some gem of info residing there.

http://www.overclock.net/hard-drives-storage/324994-whats-faster-esata-vs-firewire-800-a.html ......Post 2 might help explain what I'm getting at.

Btw the Google thing is only there so ppl don't hang around waiting for answer's when they might already be all over the net anyway.

Anyway I hope this helps set you on the way to a solution, or at least settles your mind that the drives are 100%

All the best.

[Paul Ayoub]

Thanks again for trying to help.

"if you remember back when drives started getting larger there was a limit on what would show for a while until they fixed it with large disk support"

I do remember when drives first started adopting perpendicular technology, there were issues.

It was what kept me from buying larger drives than 1TB for quite a while.

"I assume this bad boy is a 6Gbts"

Yes, and these 2011 MBP's do have a 6GBs Sata 3 port, though it is not the one I am accessing through the expresscard slot.

The contents and formatting of other drives I use through these same enclosures and docks, (up to 2tb), remain the same when I switch between FW, eSATA and USB. These drives are the only ones exhibiting this phenomenon.

As to finding this problem elsewhere.

Most people use bare internal drives permanently docked in desktop machines, so the interfaces would never change and the anomaly, (I hope its not an actual problem), would not appear. 

"Anyway I hope this helps set you on the way to a solution, or at least settles your mind that the drives are 100%"

Unfortunately I am still not satisfied.

I do not want to return the drives. I just want them to work properly.

I am guessing as you have no 3tb or Mac experience, there is nothing else you can help me with at this time. I am not finding it on google. I wish there was somewhere else to get the answers, 

[Cantbecanit]

One last thing, you do know the docks and enclosure's have drive size limit's they can handle, the largest one I've seen quoted is a 2TB, however if you look into it you may find a dock or enclosure that is rated USB3 might have larger support, hth.

Here is an example, http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/prods/components/harddrives-external/harddriveenclosures/novatech... if you look at the overview it states up to 2TB drive support, this is probably why you have this problem

This one will probably not give the issues you are getting http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/prods/components/harddrives-external/harddriveenclosures/icybox/i...

Seems this one does Sata3 and 3TB  http://www.newertech.com/products/voyagerq.php is this your one or is yours another model of the series? and remember it could be a faulty unit, I would dig into the support forum for this product as well myself.

And this thread might help a bit,   http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-1506970.html

[Paul Ayoub]

Thanks again for trying.

"Seems this one does Sata3 and 3TB  http://www.newertech.com/products/voyagerq.php is this your one or is yours another model of the series? and remember it could be a faulty unit, I would dig into the support forum for this product as well myself."

This could be it. It is my model. I'll email their support.

Thanks so much again. This is so frustrating!

As to file size limits, why would they see all 3tb?

[Cantbecanit]

I assume it's the upgrade insurance policy, they make the dock to what is current and then rely on ppl to buy another when the sizes increase, it will all be down to the control board inside the dock, no doubt you could possibly update it with an update if they issued one, but it's more appealing if you get to sell another unit from their end, hope you get to the bottom of it anyway, and do drop back to say if it does turn out to be a dock limitation.

[Paul Ayoub]

Newertech Support said that their latest model Voyager Q has a new chipset that supports 3tb, as well as USB3.

But, I have to shell out another $85 to get it.

Which would not be a problem except for it all being dying technology, as I wait for Thunderbolt to arrive so I can get the most of my 2011 MacBook Pro.

I will repost if I buy it, to report.

Thanks again!

[Cantbecanit]

I assume you've had a read here Paul  http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/beyond-2tb/

I've only just been pointed that way myself as I've had no need to to read it before, I found the install guide very helpful, have a check if there is anything in there you've not done yet, it seem's you should use Discwizard V13 to initialise the remaining 30% of the drive.

Mac version here.... http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=218579&NewLang=en

[Paul Ayoub]

Thanks for the links. I hadn't seen them before. Nothing there though that I haven't done.

As to Discwizard, I can't see where they ay to use that on a Mac.

Besides, I am not missing 30% of the drive.

My only problem is that the interface used to format is the only one that can read the disc.

Thanks so much for all the help.

[fzabkar]

One way to confirm whether the problem is due to a 2TB limit issue with the bridge chip in your enclosure would be to truncate the drive. That is, reduce its visible capacity to 2TB using SeaTools for DOS or HDAT2. Then reformat the 2TB drive via USB and Firewire.

You will need to connect the drive via SATA in order for the abovementioned applications to see it.

[Paul Ayoub]

Thanks for the tip. 

Unfortunately, I do not have access to direct SATA with my Macbook Pro.

Nor do I have another machine I could try this with.

But I will look out for one that I can use.

[omiomiomi]

Sorry to add to the confusion here but this is my case:

I am also attempting to connect a Barracuda XT 3tb to a mid-2010 MacBookPro via USB in MacOS. It is not working yet, of course.

However, when I booted into Windows 7 using bootcamp in the very same machine. It just worked, hussel free. And that means the drive, external case and chip set are able to support the drive. So I formatted the drive in Win7 with GUID but Mac OSX can't even see the drive.

Thoughts? 

[Cantbecanit]

http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=218579&NewLang=en or .http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/beyond-2tb/ or failing that it could be HFS vs NTFS.

[Pgershon]

I have similar issue to poster. I have new 3tb Seagate drive and two MacMini's. One Mini has been altered to permit direct SATA connection. I can format and see 3TB with that machine SATA. Other machine can only connect FW800 or USB. It cannot read the drive when formatted 3TB. It wilk reformat drive, but only sees 800gb. My guess is that problem lies in owc housing - tried Oxford 924 and 934

[fzabkar]

The PLX Technology web site mentions a document entitled "Using High Capacity Disks", Version 1.0, 01Jan10. Unfortunately it requires you to sign an NDA (non disclosure agreement). Otherwise there is no mention of capacity limits in the public documentation.

OXUF934DSA FireWire400 / USB2.0 / eSATA to Dual SATA Storage Controller:
http://www.plxtech.com/products/consumer/oxuf934dsa

OXUF934DSB FireWire400/800 / USB2.0 / eSATA to SATA Storage Controller:
http://www.plxtech.com/products/consumer/oxuf934dsb

OXUF924DSA/B FireWire400, FireWire800 & USB2.0 to Dual SATA Bridge:
http://www.semiconductorstore.com/pdf/newsite/oxford/oxuf924dsbpb.pdf
http://www.datasheetarchive.com/pdf/getfile.php?dir=Datasheets-24&file=DSA-468074.pdf&scan=
http://www.datasheetarchive.com/pdf/getfile.php?dir=Datasheets-24&file=DSA-468075.pdf&scan=

[Jas8472]

This is exactly what I have with mine, did you find the solution?

Thanks Jason