My new RAID 10 arrays are unstable and give me problems

[heymrdj]

Can I go with a 6gb/s card with DDR2 memory, or is it necessary to have a card with DDR3 memory when I use SSDs?

I would recommend browsing the servethehome forums and seeing what people are using there for SSD arrays. All my experience is with HBA using ZFS and solutions like that for SSD. I haven't tried to use a Raid card with an array with them, I just know the card's firmware has to be tuned for it.

I'll message my brother thecoolnessrune as he pretty much lives and breathes storage.

 

[Ketchup]

Also keep in mind that the Adaptec 5805s have a very hot chip in them, so if you don't have good airflow where the card is situated, or some type of cooling attached to the card itself, high temps may be the cause of your issues.

 

[thesmokingman]

Yea, raid cards in general run stupid hot. I always affix a small fan on mine.

 

[mh321]

When I ran crystaldiskmark on the SSDs, the temp of the controller was 80C (normal).

I got:
Sequential Read (Q= 32,T= 1) : 1076.461 MB/s
Sequential Write (Q= 32,T= 1) : 321.784 MB/s
Random Read 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 141.144 MB/s [ 34459.0 IOPS]
Random Write 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 52.314 MB/s [ 12772.0 IOPS]
Sequential Read (T= 1) : 936.515 MB/s
Sequential Write (T= 1) : 300.522 MB/s
Random Read 4KiB (Q= 1,T= 1) : 22.887 MB/s [ 5587.6 IOPS]
Random Write 4KiB (Q= 1,T= 1) : 48.305 MB/s [ 11793.2 IOPS]

Test : 1024 MiB [F: 25.4% (52.8/208.0 GiB)] (x5) [Interval=5 sec]
Date : 2016/05/12 16:48:57
OS : Windows XP Professional SP2 [5.2 Build 3790] (x64)

This is with write caching off.

I am thinking about one of these two controllers:

LSI Logic MegaRAID 9260-8i @$125 new
or
LSI MegaRAID 9265-8i @$165 ebay seller refurbished

Any thoughts or suggestions?

 

[thesmokingman]

When I ran crystaldiskmark on the SSDs, the temp of the controller was 80C (normal).

Spoiler

I got:
Sequential Read (Q= 32,T= 1) : 1076.461 MB/s
Sequential Write (Q= 32,T= 1) : 321.784 MB/s
Random Read 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 141.144 MB/s [ 34459.0 IOPS]
Random Write 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 52.314 MB/s [ 12772.0 IOPS]
Sequential Read (T= 1) : 936.515 MB/s
Sequential Write (T= 1) : 300.522 MB/s
Random Read 4KiB (Q= 1,T= 1) : 22.887 MB/s [ 5587.6 IOPS]
Random Write 4KiB (Q= 1,T= 1) : 48.305 MB/s [ 11793.2 IOPS]

Test : 1024 MiB [F: 25.4% (52.8/208.0 GiB)] (x5) [Interval=5 sec]
Date : 2016/05/12 16:48:57
OS : Windows XP Professional SP2 [5.2 Build 3790] (x64)

This is with write caching off.

I am thinking about one of these two controllers:

LSI Logic MegaRAID 9260-8i@$125 new
or
LSI MegaRAID 9265-8i @$165 ebay seller refurbished

Any thoughts or suggestions?

80c is like on fire man! Throw a lil fan on it. That is too hot to touch.

 

[mh321]

You might have possibly found the cause of my system's instability- heat. While searching the internet for a fan, the controller's temperature is at 86C right now. Adaptec Storage Manager still claims it as "normal". I'll buy a fan and see how it will run then.

If I upgraded at the same time to a 6gb/s controller, will I see a noticeable speed increase with my 4x kingston v300 SSDs in raid 10?

 

[mh321]

I will probably cool it with a 120mm fan mounted on a bracket next to the card.

 

[thesmokingman]

I will probably cool it with a 120mm fan mounted on a bracket next to the card.

http://smile.amazon.com/StarTech-com-Replacement-Computer-Connector-FAN5X1TX3/dp/B00006B8CM


It's a lot easier using one of these which is sized to the heatsink. And they're relatively quiet. I use a dab of glue.

 

[mh321]

My 4U rackmount case uses x6 Noctua Redux fans, an Asus GTX780, and a Cooler Master Nepton 120xl liquid cpu cooler. My Seagate Barracudas will eventually be set up to spin down/sleep after an x amount of minutes. Will that star-tech.com fan be loud for my setup? Almost all of my components were chosen for quietness. Thanks

 

[mh321]

What is the least CFM I can get away with if I glue the fan on the heatsink? There's a similarly sized noctua fan, but with half the airflow.

 

[thesmokingman]

Sorry, I don't know the specs on those fans, I threw the box away after gluing them on. I glued them on because they were quiet enough and the heatsink is now cool to the touch. However, I'd say anything is better than no fan.

 

[mh321]

What type of glue did you use on yours, and in which orientation did you put the airflow?

 

[mh321]

It turns out I can't glue a fan directly onto the heatsink, due to another card sitting next to it. I will have to use a fan on a bracket.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Just off the top of my head -- you want a PCI-slot bracket with an arm that allows positioning a small fan just above the controller-card's heatsink.

With such a bracket, you could then pick a 40mmx25mm Sunon Mag-Lev fan and preferably control it, or something like a Zalman OP-1 95mmx15mm unit. I mention the Zalman because I still have two or three which have variously come in quite handy, but Noctua also makes good fans with that size and dimension.

. . . In fact . . . just talking about all of this has me thinking of how to force more air from the upper side of my top 2x SLI card and out the open slot above it. I just have to find the box with those three PCI brackets I'd acquired years ago . . . and maybe one of the OP-1's. But I found the OP-1's this morning while looking for something else.

 

[mh321]

I ordered 2 Noctua 80mm fans, which will be put side by side, cooling both the raid card and the GPU. I bought some narrow metal mending plates and machine screws, which I will be using to build a custom fan bracket with vibration dampening.

 

[thesmokingman]

I checked my 5805z and it's temp is 58C with the 50mm fan glued on top. It's annoying that it doesn't have a network access, what the heck?

 

[mh321]

I installed 2 temporary 80mm fans on a bracket above the card, and then enabled write caching. They are running at full speed and are connected directly to the PSU. The card's temperature is around 70C, although I can try to rearrange the fans to try to get even more airflow. I still get degraded arrays and rebuilds. Chkdsk still keeps running as frequent as before, and for some reason, now many of the icons in windows explorer are messed up. They look like the "snow" on a tv screen, but the specks have some colors in them too.

 

[LostHiWay]

So this is just my opinion but your system seems totally over engineered for the purpose it's intended and the mix of cost savings parts aren't helping.

Here's my suggestion since you mentioned "I only intend to store media and other random non-critical things on it. "

Sell the raid card, SSD drives and hard drives to recoup some money. Build it out with the following:

512GB Samsung 950 pro m.2
PCIE M.2 Adapter
(2) - 3TB or 4TB Hard drives (I recommend HGST)

Use the Samsung 950 as your main OS drive...it'll be plenty fast enough. Use DrivePool or DriveBender for your other hard drives for media storage and configure it for x2 duplication. That way if a drive fails you can recover everything.

Also get a newer OS.

I promise you won't have any problems and you can actually use the the PC without constant issues.

 

[XavierMace]

I'll say again, at this point I would be looking at your logs and status to what's causing the array to degrade. Is it degrading because it can't see one or more drives anymore? Is it degrading because it sees too many errors on one or more drives? Is it the same drives every time?

Every RAID controller I've worked with will give you that kind of info.