Raid 0 issues with errors and failed drives on EVGA X58 mobo

[plastick]

Hey guys. I've been dealing with raid 0 problems ever since I first used raid 0 with my current EVGA X758 board. This problem has been happening for over a year. I need some input.

On my board there are two different SATA controllers: JMB362 and JMB363. Initially I had been using the JMB362 because I had trouble installing my OS while connected to it (turns out I didn't have the correct drivers). So I successfully configured raid 0 on two WD drives (Seagate Barracuda 7200 ST3250410AS 250GB 7200) and installed Windows 7 64 bit, using the JMB362 controller.

Everything was running fine and fast for a few days, but then in the middle of gaming (MW2) my system froze and I had to hard reboot. Then upon boot, when I came to the raid drive screen, it said "Error Occurred (0)" on the first drive. From that point on it my system would freeze every now and then, sometimes in the middle of gaming, sometimes as soon as I logged into Windows, sometimes whenever. The raid error would always be there every time I booted, even if the system hadn't previously froze. The only time the error would go away is if I deleted the raid volume and created a new one with the same drives.

I googled around and it seemed like my problem could be that one of my drives, maybe my master, encountered a SMART error but could not do anything about it since it was in a raid 0 volume.

Also, one of my drives seemed like it was failing, and I tried installing Windows on the non-error drive and checked the functionality of the possibly bad drive, and it seemed like it was having a hard time writing data... it was very slow and eventually wouldnt access, so I just bought a new one and tried the raid 0 config again. Everything was good again and fast, but eventually I ran into the same freeze up and "Error Occurred (0)" message again.

I noticed that one time, after probably my 7th attempt at raid 0 and Windows install, my system was no longer freezing. My system was stable. But after several months I of stability, I started getting a lot of blue screens and then the raid error again.

So I got some new drives (the same Seagate Barracudas) and this time I tried using the JMB636 controller and I got raid 0 configured and Windows 7 64 installed on that. I have not had a single freeze or "Error occurred" message, so it would seem this controller is more stable or something. HOWEVER, after about a week, Windows would start lagging, and applications would just hang forever... i would try to move a window and it would just hang there processing and doing nothing. I would have to hard boot again.

So this is the summation of all my problems with my X58 board and raid 0 configuration.

I want to know:

1. Is Raid 0 known to be generally unstable? BTW: in my BIOS, I have my SATA controllers set to RAID mode -- or should they be set to RAID + IDE?

2. Are the Seagate Barracudas just shitty drives? What is an optimal drive for raid 0?

3. I guess it could be my motherboard, but I paid like $300 from newegg, so I figured it would be a quality and stable board. I've had no other problems with it other than this.

I have contacted EVGA and they were not much help... they just wanted me to purchase an RMA for $35+ which is the last thing I want to do. I would rather figure out what exactly is causing the problem.

Other thoughts:
I have ran my OS on a single non raid drive a few times during all this and I never get freeze ups or anything. Its just a slow non-raid system which is not what I want. Also I find it hard to believe that it could just be the hard drives failing since I have gone through about 5 now. Either they are shitty drives or the errors are causing the drives to fail sooner. Maybe nothing is wrong with the motherboard or the drives themselves, but there is still some conflict between them?

 

[mfenn]

I don't recommend running RAID0 as your system drive because it really isn't that much faster than a single drive when compared to an SSD. To answer your questions:

1. As with all RAID mode it is recommended that you only use it with drives that support TLER (or equivalent). Otherwise, you can potentially experience drives dropping out of RAID, which is obviously disastrous for a RAID 0. You should not be using JMicron controllers at all, only the ICH10R.

2. Yes, Seagates are somewhat crap IMHO. If you want to reliably run RAID, you'll need drives which support TLER. Once you see the cost of those drives, you will probably come to your senses and buy an SSD.

3. All X58 mobos perform the same, so consider that $300 a lesson learned. I see you have already experienced what passes for "motherboard support" from EVGA. :awe:

 

[plastick]

hey mfenn, thanks for replying. I didn't know that about TLER, but now I'm more educated. thanks.

Is there a significant reason I should have stayed away from JMicron? I am happy with the overall performance of this X58 board, except for the raid problems. Do you recommend any other more serious motherboards?

thanks again

 

[mfenn]

JMicron does not make motherboards. They make SATA controllers that motherboard manufacturers add to the boards as a "value add". The problem with using JMicron is that the boards already come with the best SATA controller on the market (the Intel ICH10R).

I'd recommend that you stick to mobos from the Taiwanese big 3 (ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI). EVGA is just a wannabe at this point.

 

[plastick]

JMicron does not make motherboards. They make SATA controllers that motherboard manufacturers add to the boards as a "value add". The problem with using JMicron is that the boards already come with the best SATA controller on the market (the Intel ICH10R).

I'd recommend that you stick to mobos from the Taiwanese big 3 (ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI). EVGA is just a wannabe at this point.

I know JMicron is only the SATA controller manufacturer. And is that just your opinion about EVGA or are there good sources that actually suggest that EVGA is not as good as the three you listed there? I guess it's just general knowledge right... I am not a hardware guru by any means.

 

[muskie32]

I know JMicron is only the SATA controller manufacturer. And is that just your opinion about EVGA or are there good sources that actually suggest that EVGA is not as good as the three you listed there? I guess it's just general knowledge right... I am not a hardware guru by any means.

I have heard allot on the forums that EVGA mobos stink... :|

 

[mfenn]

I know JMicron is only the SATA controller manufacturer. And is that just your opinion about EVGA or are there good sources that actually suggest that EVGA is not as good as the three you listed there? I guess it's just general knowledge right... I am not a hardware guru by any means.

I don't have any hard data on failure rates or anything like that, but my observations have been that EVGA boards have more stupid little incompatibilities and missing features than any other brand (except maybe ECS).