Boot Issue with Dell HFS480G3H2X069N Disks on Dell Servers

Dear Dell Team,

We're encountering a boot failure with Dell HFS480G3H2X069N SSDs on Dell servers post-OS installation in UEFI mode.

Multiple Ubuntu versions were tested, all resulting in boot failures despite successful installations:

Disk health was verified via SMART attributes, full SMART tests, and badblocks indicating no issues.

smartctl output:

# smartctl -a /dev/sda
smartctl 7.1 2019-12-30 r5022 [x86_64-linux-5.15.0-202.135.2.el8uek.x86_64] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-19, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Device Model:     HFS480G3H2X069N
Serial Number:    ESC2N5126I1502N63
LU WWN Device Id: 5 ace42e 025622481
Add. Product Id:  DELL(tm)
Firmware Version: DZ02
User Capacity:    480,103,981,056 bytes [480 GB]
Sector Sizes:     512 bytes logical, 4096 bytes physical
Rotation Rate:    Solid State Device
Form Factor:      2.5 inches
Device is:        Not in smartctl database [for details use: -P showall]
ATA Version is:   ACS-4 (minor revision not indicated)
SATA Version is:  SATA 3.3, 6.0 Gb/s (current: 3.0 Gb/s)
Local Time is:    Tue Feb 27 12:38:51 2024 UTC
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status:  (0x02)	Offline data collection activity
					was completed without error.
					Auto Offline Data Collection: Disabled.
Self-test execution status:      (   0)	The previous self-test routine completed
					without error or no self-test has ever
					been run.
Total time to complete Offline
data collection: 		( 1730) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities: 			 (0x19) SMART execute Offline immediate.
					No Auto Offline data collection support.
					Suspend Offline collection upon new
					command.
					Offline surface scan supported.
					Self-test supported.
					No Conveyance Self-test supported.
					No Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities:            (0x0002)	Does not save SMART data before
					entering power-saving mode.
					Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability:        (0x01)	Error logging supported.
					General Purpose Logging supported.
Short self-test routine
recommended polling time: 	 (   2) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time: 	 (  30) minutes.
SCT capabilities: 	       (0x003d)	SCT Status supported.
					SCT Error Recovery Control supported.
					SCT Feature Control supported.
					SCT Data Table supported.

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 0
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x000e   100   100   006    Old_age   Always       -       0
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   100   100   002    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       128
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   100   100   020    Old_age   Always       -       20
 13 Read_Soft_Error_Rate    0x002e   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
173 Unknown_Attribute       0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       1
175 Program_Fail_Count_Chip 0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       1
179 Used_Rsvd_Blk_Cnt_Tot   0x0033   100   100   002    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
180 Unused_Rsvd_Blk_Cnt_Tot 0x0010   100   100   000    Old_age   Offline      -       716
181 Program_Fail_Cnt_Total  0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
182 Erase_Fail_Count_Total  0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0002   069   060   000    Old_age   Always       -       31 (Min/Max 24/40)
195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered  0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0010   100   100   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x003e   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
201 Unknown_SSD_Attribute   0x0033   100   100   050    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
202 Unknown_SSD_Attribute   0x0033   100   100   050    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
233 Media_Wearout_Indicator 0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       460
235 Unknown_Attribute       0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       460
241 Total_LBAs_Written      0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       468
245 Unknown_Attribute       0x0033   100   100   001    Pre-fail  Always       -       100

SMART Error Log not supported

SMART Self-test Log not supported

Selective Self-tests/Logging not supported

Here is an example of ESP content:

/mnt/ESP1/
└── EFI
    ├── BOOT
    │   ├── BOOTX64.EFI
    │   ├── fbx64.efi
    │   └── mmx64.efi
    ├── Dell
    │   └── BootOptionCache
    │       └── BootOptionCache.dat
    └── ubuntu
        ├── BOOTX64.CSV
        ├── grub.cfg
        ├── grubx64.efi
        ├── mmx64.efi
        └── shimx64.efi

5 directories, 9 files

Test setup:

1. Dell R220 with two Dell HFS480G3H2X069N SSDs
2. Supermicro X11SSW-F with two Dell HFS480G3H2X069N SSDs

The Dell server fails to boot, whereas the Supermicro server boots successfully with the same SSDs. Swapping the disks between servers confirmed that the issue is isolated to the Dell server.

Could you please help in resolving this problem?

Thank you.