Im having issues with my RAID 5 array on my ICH10R: it constantly rebuilds itself at 35hrs a time. I can't work out why, it did it once before and it was fine, but now it's rolled over twice and just starts again?! Anyone else come across this issue? Im gonna have to bite the bullet and invest in an x4 card Any recommendations for a 4-8 port R5?
Do you use standby/hibernate? I've had onboard RAID struggle with that, ended up rebuilding after every resume Whats the budget on the card? Dell Perc5i is a good choice, cheap as chips for what it offers. If you're feeling a bit more extravagant then the Areca 1680 is the daddy of desktop RAID.
Nope, full shut down. I can access and even use the RAID 5 array - all the data is there, but I'm not touching it now. I'll have a gander for the Dell, cheers Tad. I don't need performance at all, just reliability. Also - nice to see you back! Hope things are good in the world of Tad ^_^
Probably silly questions considering the recipient, but have you tried to update the mainboard's BIOS and the OS drivers for the RAID controller? Now for less silly questions. How is your RAID configured? The ICH10 will use 2 SATA controllers to get all six ports. IIRC, 0-4 are one the first controller, 5-6 are on the second. Maybe the problem has to do with drives in the array being on different controllers. How are the drives connected (strait to the MB, on a backplane, etc)? It could be the controller thinks a drive was removed hen reinserted for some reason. I have not tried the PERC card myself, but I have messed with something based on LSI's 8708ELP chip (just doing a RAID 0 though). It's easy to set up, and had performed reliably, though I suspect I could tweak my array for better performance.
Mobo has the latest BIOS. I'll check the Matrix RAID controller, but it's version 8 for Win 7, so I think it might be a Win 7 issue?? Thanks! I didn't know it used two controllers, I'll check. I'll add it to the list ^_^
For example, on Gigabyte boards you can have 6 ICH sata ports and 2 Gsata ports controlled by a JMicron or Promise chip. At least, I think that's what Splynncryth is saying.
No I think he meant within the ICH10R. I use the two purple JMicron on my Gbt board to connect the optical drives
Yes. To go to techie mode, there are two PCI devices on bus 0, that are SATA controllers. Bus 0 is normally used for chipset devices so, when you are dealing with an unitialized PCI bus, the traffic does not need to be forwarded. If anyone really cares, the details are in the EDS for the ICH10. It is still possible the issue lies with the RAID option ROM, but it should be part of the mainboard BIOS. It may be possible there is a new version of the ROM, but the OEM is still validating it if there is a new version. I think I will try and check my sources for version and date info on the ROM in the stuff I can get to. I did check errata but I didn't see anything like Bindi describes.
Don't worry yourself. I've built a FreeNAS box now for a laugh instead. My parents has lasted two years under software RAID 1, so I'm having a bash with RAID 5 on a Sempron.
