Mini Server - Losing connectivity to the upper hdd

[efegue]

Hello,

My mac mini server (mid 2010) is giving me an hard time. The upper HDD suddenly started losing connectivity and it doesn't get detected when I restart the machine, but after some time or after some SMC/PRAM reset it starts working again till it fails after some random time...

What I've tried so far:
- Exchange the disks to know it's not a problem with the HDD
- Turn on mac mini with only the upper HDD connected, it detects it and works fine.

The problem:
- Randomly disconnects the upper HDD; there's no pattern, it just happens
- When the HDD "disappears" it's not detected right away, sometimes if I wait some hours it starts working fine
- Sometimes the writing to the disk is slow and the machine breaks, it's a "symptom" that it is about to fail, but not everytime


Any ideas you guys might have? I've bought two new Samsung M9T 2TB drives for my server and now it's really unstable, sometimes it takes 2/3 days without crashing, sometimes it's some hours, it's pretty random.

 

[cinealta]

Did you check the cable?

 

[efegue]

Well, the cable looks fine, but I don't have any other cable to try.
I think it might be my last option, replace the cables

 

[Ccrew]

Well, the cable looks fine, but I don't have any other cable to try.
I think it might be my last option, replace the cables

I'm sure OWC sells the cables, essentially the same as the cables in their Data Doubler kits. That said, the board connections would be the fist place I'd check, and they're readily accessible from the bottom of the machine.

 

[philipma1957]

Hello,

My mac mini server (mid 2010) is giving me an hard time. The upper HDD suddenly started losing connectivity and it doesn't get detected when I restart the machine, but after some time or after some SMC/PRAM reset it starts working again till it fails after some random time...

What I've tried so far:
- Exchange the disks to know it's not a problem with the HDD
- Turn on mac mini with only the upper HDD connected, it detects it and works fine.

The problem:
- Randomly disconnects the upper HDD; there's no pattern, it just happens
- When the HDD "disappears" it's not detected right away, sometimes if I wait some hours it starts working fine
- Sometimes the writing to the disk is slow and the machine breaks, it's a "symptom" that it is about to fail, but not everytime


Any ideas you guys might have? I've bought two new Samsung M9T 2TB drives for my server and now it's really unstable, sometimes it takes 2/3 days without crashing, sometimes it's some hours, it's pretty random.

okay did this issue happen with the older hdds?
or did it start with the samsung install?

 

[efegue]

okay did this issue happen with the older hdds?
or did it start with the samsung install?

I can't remember for sure because one of the older HDD's was faulty. I was using the mac with only 1 hdd for a long time.

 

[MacRobert10]

You may want to go to the following site:

http://scsc-online.com/Downloads.html

and take a look at their hard drive testing download. It's long but they describe what's called an intermittent generic fault which can be a problem with almost any type of connection in the system, hence the word "generic" in the name. You may want to look at the write ups on how these problems get worse and better with heating and cooling. It might be worth a shot.