Symptom

The drive activity LED for Seagate models ST2000NM003A and ST8000NM001A has unexpected behavior on ThinkSystem servers (shows off while the drive is in idle state).

There is no other functional impact to the drive operation.

Affected Configurations

The system may be any of the following Lenovo servers:

• ThinkSystem SR635, Type 7Y98, any model
• ThinkSystem SR635, Type 7Y99, any model
• ThinkSystem SR655, Type 7Y00, any model
• ThinkSystem SR655, Type 7Z01, any model
• ThinkSystem SR850, Type 7X18, any model
• ThinkSystem SR850, Type 7X19, any model
• ThinkSystem SR850P, Type 7D2F, any model
• ThinkSystem SR850P, Type 7D2G, any model
• ThinkSystem SR850P, Type 7D2H (SAP HANA), any model
• ThinkSystem SR860, Type 7X69, any model 7X69, 7X70
• ThinkSystem SR950, Type 7X11, any model 7X11, 7X12
• ThinkSystem SR950, Type 7X12, any model
• ThinkSystem SR950, Type 7X13 (SAP HANA), any model
• ThinkSystem SD530, Type 7X21, any model
• ThinkSystem SD650 Dual Node WCT Tray, any model 7X58
• ThinkSystem SR150, Type 7Y54, any model
• ThinkSystem SR158, Type 7Y55, any model
• ThinkSystem SR250, Type 7Y51, any model
• ThinkSystem SR250, Type 7Y52, any model
• ThinkSystem SR250, Type 7Y72, any model
• ThinkSystem SR250, Type 7Y73, any model
• ThinkSystem SR258, Type 7Y53, any model
• ThinkSystem SR530, Type 7X07, any model
• ThinkSystem SR530, Type 7X08, any model
• ThinkSystem SR550, Type 7X03, any model
• ThinkSystem SR550, Type 7X04, any model
• ThinkSystem SR570, Type 7Y02, any model
• ThinkSystem SR570, Type 7Y03, any model
• ThinkSystem SR590, Type 7X98, any model
• ThinkSystem SR590, Type 7X99, any model
• ThinkSystem SR630, Type 7X01, any model
• ThinkSystem SR630, Type 7X02, any model
• ThinkSystem SR650, Type 7X05, any model
• ThinkSystem SR650, Type 7X06, any model
• ThinkSystem SR670, Type 7Y36, any model
• ThinkSystem SR670, Type 7Y37, any model
• ThinkSystem ST250, Type 7Y45, any model
• ThinkSystem ST250, Type 7Y46, any model
• ThinkSystem ST258, Type 7Y47, any model
• ThinkSystem ST50, Type 7Y48, any model
• ThinkSystem ST550, Type 7X09, any model 7X09, 7X10
• ThinkSystem ST550, Type 7X10, any model
• ThinkSystem ST558, Type 7Y15, any model
• ThinkSystem ST558, Type 7Y16, any model

This tip is not software specific.

This tip is not option specific.

The HDD firmware for the ST2000NM003A & ST8000NM001A is affected.

The system has the symptom described above.

Solution

This behavior will be corrected in a future release of the drive firmware included on the Lenovo Online SAS/SATA Hard Disk Drive Update Program.

The target date for this release is scheduled for Second Quarter 2020.

The file will be available by selecting the appropriate Product Group, type of System, Product name, Product machine type, and Operating system on Lenovo Support web page, at the following URL:

http://datacentersupport.lenovo.com/

Workaround

On some configurations, the LED behavior can be modified by changing a value on the drive mode pages.

This process only applies to drives connected to HBA adapters (i.e. ThinkSystem 430-HBA) or connected to other drive controllers and configured in JBOD mode. OS utilities need direct access to the physical drive, but they cannot access it if the drive is configured on a RAID volume.

1. List the drives on the server:

   [root@localhost approximately]# smartctl --scan
   /dev/sda -d SCSI # /dev/sda, SCSI device
   /dev/sdb -d SCSI # /dev/sdb, SCSI device
   /dev/sdc -d SCSI # /dev/sdc, SCSI device
   /dev/sdd -d SCSI # /dev/sdd, SCSI device

2. Display the details of the drive:

   [root@localhost approximately]# smartctl -i /dev/sdb
   smartctl 6.2 2017-02-27 r4394 [x86_64-linux-3.10.0-693.el7.x86_64] (local build)
   Copyright (C) 2002-13, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org
   
   === START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
   Vendor: LENOVO
   Product: ST8000NM001A
   Revision: L2B2
   User Capacity: 2,400,476,553,216 bytes [2.40 TB]
   Logical block size: 512 bytes
   Physical block size: 4096 bytes
   . . . . this output will be longer, not relevant

   Note the "Product", in this case it is ST8000NM001A, but drive ST2000NM003A is also impacted by this problem.

3. Display drive properties, LED activity in the controller by the "Ready LED meaning" property:

   [root@localhost Lin64]# sginfo -t 0x19 /dev/sdb
   SAS SSP port control mode page (0x19)
   -------------------------------------
   Ready LED meaning 0
   I_T Nexus Loss time 2000
   Initiator response time-out 2000
   

   Another option to display this information is

   [root@localhost Lin64]# sginfo -Xt 0x19 /dev/sdb
   0 2000 2000

   "Ready LED meaning" should be 1 (enabled) for the activity LED to act properly.

4. Update the "Ready LED meaning" property:

   [root@localhost Lin64]# sginfo -XRt 0x19 /dev/sdb 1 2000 2000

5. Verify the property has changed:

   [root@localhost Lin64]# sginfo -t 0x19 /dev/sdb
   SAS SSP port control mode page (0x19)
   -------------------------------------
   Ready LED meaning 1
   I_T Nexus Loss time 2000
   Initiator response time-out 2000

   The LED behavior will change as soon as the command in step 4 is executed. This change will be persistent throughout drive operations, reboots and AC power cycles.

   Another option is to ignore the behavior of the drive activity LED. The drive operation is not affected, and the drive does not need to be replaced.

   (where HBA = Host Bus Adapter, JBOD = Just a bunch of disks, RAID = Redundant Array of Independent Disks)

Additional Information

A property was incorrectly set on the drive and this affects the function of the activity LED. The LED behavior can be recovered by changing that bit. New drive firmware will correct this issue.

This is only a cosmetic issue with no impact to drive operation. The drive can continue on use without problem.

The drive status LED is not affected.