The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/AardvarkOmlette on 2025-02-13 20:32:35.
Making my Seagate X16 EXOS Enterprise drives work with a consumer PSU
I purchased 3 Seagate EXOS X16 14tb drives from eBay to elevate my data hording. This post is a PSA / Info share, after being surprised when 3 new HDDs appeared DOA.
The SATA power connector spec changed from SATA 3.1 to 3.2+ (2013 lol) where pin 3 (a previously standard 3v pin) is now used to signal the device 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.
This isn't exactly a new issue but, I found the issue with a hard drive dock and a multimeter before finding what I needed on the internet. Post for awareness and hopes of people finding it in the future.
This made me consider starting a blog hosted here for now: https://sites.google.com/view/lokee-homelabs/blog/sata-spec-changes
Note: This most likely only impacts "Enterprise" hard drives
Tags: new hard drive wont spin, new hard drive not in bios, new hard drive no power, Seagate x16 EXOS no power.