hatschi1000

Never mind

Talking about anecdotes: Some of you might remember the issue of booting my helios4 with 2 HGST Deskstar HDDs I had approx. half a year ago (https://forum.armbian.com/topic/6033-helios4-support/?do=findComment&comment=57981). After we weren't able to find a solution on why the specific problem appeared here on the forum, I got in contact with @gprovost directly and after some back and forth messaging he kindly asked for the defective board to be sent back to Singapore. Soon after I received a fixed board back with which the problem did not appear anymore. Right now I'm still tinkering around my setup (2x2TB HDD in btrfs-RAID1 underneath OMV4 with (at some point at least) an automated offsite backup using btrfs-snapshots), without having had any significant problems - a big thumbs up to @gprovost and the entire helios team for the straightforward communication and flawless exchange of the faulty carrier board.

I'm gonna give it a try and report back EDIT: bad luck, mine still refused to boot after unplugging the SoC and replugging it after a while @gprovost looks like I'll have to take you up on the offer of sending it in to you, more in the PM

@gprovost I could if it booted at very least without any HDD connected, but since pretty much right after the various tests and a couple more tries with booting with/without a drive attached yesterday evening (CET) it unfortunately does not even so: no heartbeat, no boot, no logs generated (I double checked) once mains is connected. There was never any USB device connected at any time, neither a drive nor anything else Indeed the power brick is 12V/8A (model yczx-1268 manufactured by ???). I got no idea why it wouldn't startup anymore, the power connection seems to work as LED8 is illuminated as well as the right hand yellow LED from the network interface. From some (admittedly rather amateurishly) measurements I could find that the PSU draws ~ 3W when nothing is connected; the device used as an temporary external PSU via a different molex - SATA adapter cable I've had on hand (male molex to female SATA, the linked device also has a molex output; using the SATA interface on it would have been rather pointless) instead of the included female molex to female SATA cable requires ~25W for several seconds to spin up _one_ of the drives and for the running operation of that single drive between 9 - 10 watts.

Hi @gprovost and thanks for your quick reply! It could indeed be the spin-up current, according to the datasheet (pdf) I've found at the HGST website the disks I am trying to operate require up to 1.2A @ +5V and 2A @ +12V - theoretically combined 2*30W = 60W at startup - which seems, according to a comparison-sheet by a dude over at FreeNAS, like quite a lot. Let me answer your questions: The exact model is called HGST HDN724040AL. I decided to opt for them instead of the classic WD Reds as HGST drives were sort of considered "the tanks" among HDDs in general (lower failure rates I were told, that stats might be of interest for some people considering which drive (manufacturer and/or model) to buy, note though: these are the statistics for Q4 2017 as well as 2017 in total, at this page there are quite a lot more observation periods available). Indeed I did try both SATA plugs on each cable with both cables with both molex-headers on the board with both drives I have got here - already tried to narrow down the issue as good as possible (16 tries in total) When connecting the SATA power cable while the SBC is running, the drives also don't spin up at all (seems like most of the time they don't even start spinning up as they generally have to me a notable noise) Also notable: if the system heartbeat is illuminated in the moment the power connection from the board to the drive is established it remains on permanently, same goes for the case when it is off in that moment. When powering up without any drives attached it works fine (boot-log when no HDDs are connected is attached) If there is a single drives' SATA-power connected to the helios4, the system either does not boot at all and the drive does not start spinning up, or it stops fairly soon after starting to spin up the drives, which then also start slowing down again - looks like they then lack power as well. If the drive starts spinning up and the system starts booting, the serial console (and presumably also the entire system) freezes at about line 20 (varies partially by some lines, I guess sometimes it freezes earlier, sometimes a bit later) of the attached log and that's it then, the mains power has to be disconnected for it to start again. If one drive is connected at powering up (note: serial console remains clear) pressing the CPU-reset button does not change anything: the power indicator remains on, the heartbeat and the OS remains off. It is possible to power up the system without any drives attached, which is also how I tested for the 2nd question (always connected the HDD once the system was properly booted and responsive). It instantly freezes, no heartbeat any more, the LED1 remains as it was the moment the connection to the drive was established. As of right now it seems it's likely a issue with the spin-up surge current required by the drive(s), I'm gonna look whether I can activate the PUIS mode for my HGST drives - any advice is still very welcome! Attachment: helios4-no-hdd-startup.log A short update (nr. 1): there seem to be multiple ways to prevent the drive from spinning up rightaway (PUIS as well as "SATA pin 11"), but right now after all the testing the board does not even boot without any HDD attached anymore (neither a system heartbeat, nor any serial output) - lol.

Hi all, I hope this is the right place to discuss this problem I have had with using the helios4. I seem to have stumbled upon a considerably strange issue with using the helios4 NAS (...once I even got to the point of booting, but read on). After receiving and carefully following the instructions for physical assembly of the device, I came to the point of having the included SanDisk SD-Card flashed with the prebuilt OMV image, I plugged it and all the other required cables in and connected the helios4 to mains electricity. The power indicator LED8 came on and the fans came up to full speed - and that's it, nothing booting, no flashing system heartbeat LED1. As suggested in the Hardware section of the instructions, I had already connected my 2 HDDs (HGST Deskstar 2TB) to the board. It actually took me quite a while figuring out why the system does not even boot: it appears, that the board might be unable to maintain its own electricity supply with even _one_ HDD connected to power via the molex - SATA power adapter. Once I disconnected the HDD power (leaving the data still connected) it suddenly booted after replugging mains and the heartbeat LED came to life. After some basic setup and finding an adapter to test powering the HDD (only one HDD again, I unfortunately only have an adapter able to power one and not two or even more) via an external supply, the system booted and detected the connected drive. Upon trying to re-plug the power connection onto the onboard molex - SATA adapter, the system instantly freezes and did not react to any input via serial console. In the beginning I also tried using a different OS image (Debian 9 Stretch Kernel 4.14.20, provided in the download section, build date 17/02/2018) and different SD-Cards with the same result: the system did not boot or start flashing the heartbeat LED1. I honestly have absolutely no clue as to why the SBC can't maintain its power but I really hope there is a solution to this seemingly power-related problem with being able to power the HDDs from onboard, as otherwise without drives the NAS cannot really be used as a NAS.