3.5 HDD keeps rebooting

Insight & Feedback
1

Hello,

I received my Zimablade NAS Kit yesterday and I am trying to set it up with 2 x 3.5 12TB WD Red Plus WD120EFGX with it, however I am able to use only one drive with it, if I connect the second drive it keeps rebooting the drive, these are brand new drives and work fine if only one is plugged in, I bought this thinking that I would be able to use any HDD drives. I am using the 60W power brick. attaching the link to video of what happens when both are plugged in.
lsblk would show only one drive. what could be the issue here? Faulty board? Faulty cable? Faulty power brick or something else?

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2

From your description, the behaviour you’re seeing is very commonly related to power draw, not faulty drives.

The ZimaBlade NAS Kit with the 60W power adapter can usually run:

  • 1 × 3.5" HDD reliably
  • 2 × 3.5" HDD only if the spin-up current stays within limits

However, WD Red Plus 12TB (WD120EFGX) drives typically draw around 1.75–2A during spin-up. When both drives spin up at the same time, the startup current can exceed what the board and the 60W power brick can supply.

When that happens the system will repeatedly power-cycle the drive, which matches the behaviour you described and why:

  • One drive works normally
  • Two drives cause the drive to reset repeatedly
  • lsblk only shows one disk

Things you can check

Boot with one drive connected and confirm it appears:

lsblk

Then power off and swap the drives, confirming both disks work individually.

If each disk works by itself but the reboot behaviour starts when both are connected, it strongly suggests a power limit during HDD spin-up.

Check kernel messages

When both drives are connected you can also check the system logs:

dmesg | tail -n 50

Typical power-related messages include:

  • SATA link resets
  • drive disconnect / reconnect loops
  • controller resets

Common solutions

Most users solve this in one of these ways:

1. Use a higher wattage PSU

A 90W or 120W adapter gives enough headroom for two 3.5" drives to spin up.

2. Use an externally powered enclosure

This removes the startup load from the ZimaBlade.

3. Use lower spin-up current drives

Some HDD models draw less current during startup.

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3

I received this week a ZimaBoard2 and connected 2x 3.5 HDD Seagate IronWolf Pro 16TB. The power supply has 12V/5A and is advertised officially as “Accommodate the power requirements of two high-capacity HDD“. No issue here like you experience.

The ZimaBlade NAS kit is supposed to come also with the 12V/5A power supply. So it should be ok, especially when Zima is advertising it for 2x 3.5HDD. The standard ZimaBlade though comes only with a 12V/3A power supply. Hence, double check if they delivered you the correct one or by mistake the default one, which obviously is weaker.

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