Field Notice: FN - 63499 - Disk Drive Contamination Causes Premature Failure - Replace on Failure

Notice

THIS FIELD NOTICE IS PROVIDED ON AN "AS IS" BASIS AND DOES NOT IMPLY ANY KIND OF GUARANTEE OR WARRANTY, INCLUDING THE WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY. YOUR USE OF THE INFORMATION ON THE FIELD NOTICE OR MATERIALS LINKED FROM THE FIELD NOTICE IS AT YOUR OWN RISK. CISCO RESERVES THE RIGHT TO CHANGE OR UPDATE THIS FIELD NOTICE AT ANY TIME.

Revision History

Products Affected

Defect Information

Problem Description

Certain hard disk drives have the possibility of premature failure due to contamination, which is the result of a defective top cover seal. Affected drives can be identified by the serial number and were shipped by Cisco between April 3, 2012 through June 1, 2012.

Background

A high failure rate of hard disk drives was detected during Ongoing Reliability Testing at the manufacturer's facility, and root cause was determined to be the seal on the top cover. The defective seal causes contamination of the read/write heads, and can result in eventual degraded Bit Error Rate or complete failure of the drive. There is a 50% chance of drive failure within the first 500 hours of operation. The drive manufacturer has taken the corrective action to replace the disk drive top cover gasket Form In Place Gasket material from 3M 4302 heat cured epoxy to Huntsman TX-09 UV cured acrylate.

Drives in operation beyond the first 500 hours of operation should perform normally and not have premature failure.

Problem Symptom

Symptoms exhibited by affected hard disk drives include increased read/write errors or complete failure.

Workaround/Solution

Drives in operation beyond the first 500 hours of operation should perform normally and not have premature failure. If a drive fails or experiences a large number of errors, it should be replaced with a standard Return Material Authorization (RMA).

How To Identify Affected Products

Affected hard disk drives are identified by the serial number, and are applicable for use in Cisco UCS B-Series Blade Servers and UCS C-Series Rack Servers. If you use hard disk drives in the list of affected products at the top of this Field Notice, you can retrieve the serial number from your drive and use the Field Notice 63499 Serial Number Validation Tool in order to confirm whether the unit is on the list of affected units.

Check the HDD Serial Number on UCS B-Series Blade Servers

Note: This method also applies to UCS C-Series Rack Servers that use integrated UCS Manager (UCSM).

1. Log in to UCSM.
2. Choose Chassis > Server > Inventory > Storage.
3. Note the serial number for each hard disk drive that matches a Product ID noted in the Products Affected section at the top of this Field Notice. If the displayed serial number is longer than 8 alphanumeric digits, note only the first 8 digits. See this example:

   

4. If desired, the CLI can also be used to capture hard disk drive serial numbers. See this CLI example:

   UCSexample1 /chassis/server/raid-controller # sh local-disk detail expand
   
   Local Disk: 
   ID: 1 
   Block Size: 512 
   Blocks: 1758174768 
   Size (MB): 858483 
   Technology: Hdd 
   Operability: Operable 
   Presence: Equipped 
   Product Name: 900GB 6Gb SAS 10K RPM 2.5 in. HDD/hot plug/drive sled mounted 
   PID: UCS-HDD900GI2F106 
   VID: V01 
   Vendor: SEAGATE 
   Vendor Description: Seagate Technology LLC 
   Serial: 6XS23BLZ 
   HW Rev: 0 
   
   ID: 2 
   Block Size: 512 
   Blocks: 1758174768 
   Size (MB): 858483 
   Technology: Hdd 
   Operability: Operable 
   Presence: Equipped 
   Product Name: 900GB 6Gb SAS 10K RPM 2.5 in. HDD/hot plug/drive sled mounted 
   PID: UCS-HDD900GI2F106 
   VID: V01 
   Vendor: SEAGATE 
   Vendor Description: Seagate Technology LLC 
   Serial: 6XS23BV90000M236L2X7 
   HW Rev: 0

5. After you collect serial numbers from potentially affected hard drives, check whether they are affected with the Field Notice 63499 Serial Number Validation Tool.

Check the HDD Serial Number on UCS C-Series Rack Servers

1. Log in to Cisco Integrated Management Controller (CIMC).
2. Choose Inventory > Storage > Physical Drive Info.
3. For C-Series CIMC users, the manufacturer model number is displayed in the Product ID field instead of the orderable Product ID. See this table in order to identify affected model numbers:
    

   Manufacturer Model	Product ID	Product Description
   ST9300605SS	A03-D300GA2	300GB 6Gb SAS 10K RPM SFF HDD/hot plug/drive sled mounted
   ST9600205SS	A03-D600GA2	600GB 6Gb SAS 10K RPM SFF HDD/hot plug/drive sled mounted
   ST9900805SS	UCS-HDD900GI2F106	900GB 6Gb SAS 10K RPM SFF HDD/hot plug/drive sled mounted



4. Note the serial numbers of any hard disk drive(s) which have a Model/Product ID listed in the table. See this example:

   

5. After you collect the serial numbers from potentially affected hard drives, check whether they are affected with the Field Notice 63499 Serial Number Validation Tool.

For More Information

If you require further assistance, or if you have any further questions regarding this field notice, please contact the Cisco Systems Technical Assistance Center (TAC) by one of the following methods:

• Open a service request on Cisco.com
• By email
• By telephone

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