3.5" SATA Disk Interface differences - Who knew?

[Nick Shortland]

Folks,

I needed to upgrade my DNS323 disks from 2x2Gb, so off I went and ordered from Amazon.co.uk.  My existing 2Gb drives are WD but Amazon had a good offer on 'Seagate IronWolf, 4TB, NAS, Internal Hard Drive, CMR, 3.5 Inch, SATA, 6GB/s, 5,400 RPM, 256MB Cache, for RAID Network Attached Storage'.  I bought them.  When I opened them I noticed they were thinner than the old drives, but when I attempted to fit them into the DNS - No Go!   The interface is now different and looks more like a 2.5" interface offset to the left.

This has stumped me.  When did the 3.5" SATA change?  Is there an adapter? Would it even fit in the DNS with an adapter?  

I think it is best to return them for a refund and rethink my strategy taking into account any wise advise my friends on this forum can give me.  I am now racked with doubt about what to buy as I cannot see a differentiator in the descriptions which would indicate the interface.

HELP!

[John Travell]

All SATA drives have exactly the same interface, and always have had from when SATA first appeared. 3.5inch drives it is offset to one side (which side depends on how you have the drive oriented) and 2.5inch drives it is more nearly central.
2.5SSD on top of 3.5HDD, SATA ports identical

If the drives you have do NOT match one of those in the image (2.5SSD on 3.5HDD) then maybe you have been sent the wrong drives. The imaged drives are exactly standard SATA.
Could you have been trying to fit them the wrong way round?

The D-link datasheet for the DNS323 specifies --
    SUPPORTED HARD DRIVE TYPE
    + Up to 2 SATA-standard drives of any capacity size
    + 3.5-inch internal

JohnT

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[Jose Salce]

Could you show a picture of the disk SATA and power connection?

[John Travell]

I added a picture to my earlier reply, it vanished. hopefully this time it will work....

This is illustrating a 2.5SSD on top of a 3.5HDD, note that the physical SATA ports are identical. The SATA version number relates to how fast the controllers at both ends of the cable can process data, the lowest number places the limit for that connection.

SATA physical port connectors have never changed since SATA first appeared.

If the drives you have do NOT match one of those in the image (2.5inch HDD or SSD, or  3.5inch HDD) then maybe you have been sent the wrong drives. The imaged drives are exactly standard SATA.

Could you have been trying to fit them the wrong way round?

The D-link datasheet for the DNS323 specifies --
    SUPPORTED HARD DRIVE TYPE
    + Up to 2 SATA-standard drives of any capacity size
    + 3.5-inch internal 

This does not preclude you fitting 2.5inch SSD's, it just means that the support brackets would not secure the drive.

JohnT

[Nick Shortland]

[John Travell]

An extremely good choice of HDD, I have an 8tb example in my DSN-320L. Absolutely standard SATA connectors.

Now look inside the device. You should see two sockets matching the connectors on the drive. 

The user manual states --- 

>>Insert a 3.5” SATA hard drive into each available drive bay. Make sure to align the drive connectors to the SATA connectors on the bottom edge inside the drive bay of the DNS-323. <<

This infers to me that as you view the device from the front both drives have their top (as shown in your '3796 image) to the right. This is different to mine where the drive tops face each other.

Hopefully this will help you solve the issue. However, the D-link page I downloaded the spec-sheet from states that 

>> Maximum storage capacity   4Tb <<

I expect this is a limitation of the D-link software, rather than hardware, and provided you are running Alt-F you should be OK.

JohnT

On Thursday, 19 June 2025 at 16:44:33 UTC+1 nick.sh...@gmail.com wrote:

[John Travell]

I found this image of the internals of the DNS323. It may help to clear up how things go together.

dlink_dns323_chassis

JohnT

[Nick Shortland]

Thanks John for your guidance.  I have retrieved my new drives from the Amazon return package and now have the first one installed in my Dlink323 and recognised as a 4Tb drive by Alt-f.   Onward an upward now to rebuild my RAID.

Nick.

[Nick Shortland]

I'm a very happy Alt-f'er.  My task is complete.  My 2Tb disks are both upgraded to 4TB and my RAID is rebuilt and resized.  Thank you to everyone, especially JohnT.  Amazing piece of kit, the DNS323, solid and reliable and rejuvenated by Alt-f.  Coming up on 20 years since I bought mine.  Amazing.

[Nick Shortland]

I had a minor panic when I could not see my files, but I resolved that by mounting and resizing the network share.  All is again good.

[John James]

Could you share in simple terms the process of swapping the drives and rebuilding the RAID? One of my drives showd bad health and I am wandering how to proceed...

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[Nick Shortland]

John,

Let me think about that.  The problem is that I didn’t take notes.  I just muddled through and just referenced the alt-f wiki when I hit a problem.  I had a few false starts and one complete restart from scratch.

Also, I’m far from an expert.  As you see from the title of the post I had difficulty spotting the progress in 3.5” disks in recent years and was hoodwinked by the slim bodies into trying to fit them incorrectly to the right rather than the left of each DNS323 slot.

Anyway, back to the upgrades. Golden Rule number-1  is to deal with one drive at a time. Deliberately Fail one of the original RAID disks. Remove that  drive and keep it safe.  That is your fall-back if you mess up.   Then you are working with one original RAID disk and one new larger disk which you want to promote.  Golden Rule-2 is to make sure ONLY the new drive is ticked when you are making changes with partitions and file systems.  To put it another way, double check before each step that the old RAID disk is not selected for change.

Refer to the alt-f wikis and the forum.  There is a wealth of knowledge there. I had multiple pages open during my upgrade.  And of course, if you are stuck, send an email.  Ask the question.  You will get a quick and helpful answer, or more likely, a set of answers.  You are not alone, and as long as you keep at least one of your existing RAID disks safe and unchanged, you can make multiple attempts at this task.  Have confidence, you WILL get there.

Regards,

Nick

On 22 Jun 2025, at 09:19, John James <kis...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[Dimitrios G. Panagiotidis]

Nick - Glad you were able to accomplish the upgrade relatively(?!) easy. However, I was lost when you said all you had to do is "mounting and resize the share". I'm not sure what that means. From my experience, once you remove one drive, the RAID becomes degraded. Then, I'm not sure if Alt-F will initiate an automatic repair or the user has to do that manually. However the moment a different drive is inserted, doesn't it first need to be prepared (e.g. initialized, formatted, FS created, etc.) before it can be added to a RAID array?

I'm looking in the web interface, under "DISK --> RAID, Maintenance, Operations" there is an 'Enlarge' function. Is this what you did? The question is, what is the proper order? As a non expert myself I would love to know if there is a step-by-step online document explaining how to perform a RAID rebuild, especially like in your case, e.g. when replacing hard drives to a larger capacity. Does anyone know if and where such a document exists? If yes, please post a link. Much appreciated, thanks!

Dimi...@gMail.com

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