WD Elements 1.5 TB: SATA-to-USB controller limited to 2 TB
Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2014 11:58 pm
Recently my external USB harddisk, a Western Digital Elements 1.5 TB gave up: The hard disk inside died (bad blocks).
I took the chassis apart, because I'm planning to simply replaced the failed disk, not the whole USB chassis.
The original disk inside is a WD Green 1.5 TB.
I then attached a WD Red 3.0 TB to the Elements' controller. "hdparm" output looks promising:
Checking the partition table, using "sgdisk" confirmed by negative expectation:
It tells me that it will only allocate up to 2.0 TiB:
I took the chassis apart, because I'm planning to simply replaced the failed disk, not the whole USB chassis.
The original disk inside is a WD Green 1.5 TB.
I then attached a WD Red 3.0 TB to the Elements' controller. "hdparm" output looks promising:
I was afraid that the controller might be limited to addressing <= 2.0 TB, but hdparm says the disk has 3 TB size:ATA device, with non-removable media
Model Number: WDC WD30EFRX-68AX9N0
Serial Number: WD-WMC1T1431990
Firmware Revision: 80.00A80
Transport: Serial, SATA 1.0a, SATA II Extensions, SATA Rev 2.5, SATA Rev 2.6, SATA Rev 3.0
Standards:
Supported: 9 8 7 6 5
Likely used: 9
Configuration:
Logical max current
cylinders 16383 16383
heads 16 16
sectors/track 63 63
--
CHS current addressable sectors: 16514064
LBA user addressable sectors: 268435455
LBA48 user addressable sectors: 5860533168
Logical Sector size: 512 bytes
Physical Sector size: 4096 bytes
Logical Sector-0 offset: 0 bytes
device size with M = 1024*1024: 2861588 MBytes
device size with M = 1000*1000: 3000592 MBytes (3000 GB)
cache/buffer size = unknown
Capabilities:
LBA, IORDY(can be disabled)
Queue depth: 32
Standby timer values: spec'd by Standard, with device specific minimum
R/W multiple sector transfer: Max = 16 Current = 0
DMA: *mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 udma5 udma6
Cycle time: min=120ns recommended=120ns
PIO: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
Cycle time: no flow control=120ns IORDY flow control=120ns
Commands/features:
Enabled Supported:
* SMART feature set
Security Mode feature set
* Power Management feature set
* Write cache
* Look-ahead
* Host Protected Area feature set
* WRITE_BUFFER command
* READ_BUFFER command
* NOP cmd
* DOWNLOAD_MICROCODE
Power-Up In Standby feature set
* SET_FEATURES required to spinup after power up
SET_MAX security extension
* 48-bit Address feature set
* Device Configuration Overlay feature set
* Mandatory FLUSH_CACHE
* FLUSH_CACHE_EXT
* SMART error logging
* SMART self-test
Media Card Pass-Through
* General Purpose Logging feature set
* 64-bit World wide name
* URG for READ_STREAM[_DMA]_EXT
* URG for WRITE_STREAM[_DMA]_EXT
* WRITE_UNCORRECTABLE_EXT command
* {READ,WRITE}_DMA_EXT_GPL commands
* Segmented DOWNLOAD_MICROCODE
* Gen1 signaling speed (1.5Gb/s)
* Gen2 signaling speed (3.0Gb/s)
* Gen3 signaling speed (6.0Gb/s)
* Native Command Queueing (NCQ)
* Host-initiated interface power management
* Phy event counters
* NCQ priority information
* unknown 76[15]
DMA Setup Auto-Activate optimization
Device-initiated interface power management
* Software settings preservation
* SMART Command Transport (SCT) feature set
* SCT LBA Segment Access (AC2)
* SCT Error Recovery Control (AC3)
* SCT Features Control (AC4)
* SCT Data Tables (AC5)
unknown 206[7]
unknown 206[12] (vendor specific)
unknown 206[13] (vendor specific)
unknown 206[14] (vendor specific)
Security:
Master password revision code = 65534
supported
not enabled
not locked
not frozen
not expired: security count
supported: enhanced erase
422min for SECURITY ERASE UNIT. 422min for ENHANCED SECURITY ERASE UNIT.
Logical Unit WWN Device Identifier: 50014ee0ae26cd03
NAA : 5
IEEE OUI : 0014ee
Unique ID : 0ae26cd03
Checksum: correct
Well, cheered too soon...device size with M = 1000*1000: 3000592 MBytes (3000 GB)
Checking the partition table, using "sgdisk" confirmed by negative expectation:
Code: Select all
$ sudo sgdisk -p /dev/sdxSo I guess I'll try replacing it with a WD Red 2.0 TiB thenCreating new GPT entries.
Disk /dev/sdf: 4294961152 sectors, 2.0 TiB
Logical sector size: 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): 7EA4B585-3E83-4921-AB0C-209C02C260AD
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 4294961118
Partitions will be aligned on 2048-sector boundaries
Total free space is 4294961085 sectors (2.0 TiB)
Number Start (sector) End (sector) Size Code Name