Raid Card Drops Hdd's

[imported_Silencer00]

Im using a Promise FastTrack100 TX2 Raid card with 2 IDE channels, and running 2 80G WDSE drives (1 per channel). I got the array up and running with no hitches, but now about a week after solid operation, windows froze - and upon reboot, only 1 drive in the array is being detected. I remember hearing about people having problems with this (where a drive will randomly disappear from the array), and the solution was to apply a patch by western digital WD Acoustic Firmware Patch, which I did; only it didnt seem to help
Has anyone here had any experience with this raid card and could give me some much needed direction?

 

[boomerang]

I'm trying to find it right now, but there are jumper issues with WD drives and this card. If I remember correctly they want all jumpers removed from WD drives when used with this card.

I'm looking for more info now.

Download "Troubleshooting Tips for FastTrak100/TX2/TX2000 Series Controller" listed under Installguide from here.

Page 2 talks about the jumpers.

 

[boomerang]

I'm having this problem at my wife's office too. These are small drives so the Acoustic Patch does not apply.

I changed the jumpers per the above mentioned instructions and the problem still exists. The problem is very random. Sometimes going weeks with no problem and then acting up for two or three days in a row.

Close inspection revealed a bulging capacitor on the motherboard and I hoped that could be contributing to the problem. Got that taken care of and the problem still exists. Although the tape drive is back working perfectly again! One drive is in a removable enclosure and I thought that might be a factor also. The drive comes out every day and goes in the safe. I'm not sure if these drive cages are really designed for frequent use like that.

This system is getting pretty old, we need to upgrade from Win98, new software is in the imminent future, and business is picking up so parts are on order for a replcacement. I'm going with a 3ware card on this new rig.

Hope you get some good results.

 

[imported_Silencer00]

Thats the guide I was using also - I made sure to pull off the jumpers initially, so thats how they are running atm, well one of them at least...I would like to try running a disk diagnostic on the drive that failed just to make sure that its not shot to begin with, but unf you cant run WD's diagnostic util on systems using an nforce2 mobo - guess what I have =]

 

[imported_Silencer00]

Could someone suggest a decent raid card? Id really like to pick up something that doesnt have all these problems....something that isnt unreasonably expensive and can do raid1 reliably. thanks!

 

[imported_Silencer00]

TTT

 

[boomerang]

I would assume that a lot of RAID runners here are using their onboard RAID. I am using the RAID function built into my board.

You'll see 3ware mentioned here a lot and I'm sure it's for a good reason. 3ware They are not inexpensive though.

The Silicon Image chips are in high regard here also. I don't know if they offer their own products or only sell chips to others. They do sell chips to motherboard manufacturers.

That Promise card you are using has ben around for a long time. I'm sure they have a newer card out that should be more reliable.

I wish I could give more advice. Keep it bumped.

 

[Cerb]

I'd recommend forgetting about it .
This happened with the file server here, adding a drive. The newer 800JB kept dropping out. As a single drive, not part of RAID, it works great, but even after updating firmware on everything and using software RAID even, it just did not want to work right. It might be day, maybe a couple hours...but it would appear to have died and require a reboot to get back.
Two of the Promise ATA100 controllers were used (not with a RAID-enabled BIOS, software RAID 5), also tried was the Adaptec 1200A (hardware RAID 0+1), and having all the drives coming off the mobo, CDROMs off the promise (software RAID 5 and 0+1). Nothing worked. The drives just didn't like playing together. Removed the newer drive, and all was well again.

If you have some other 80GB drives, you could see if some other combination works.

 

[imported_Silencer00]

So the problem is just with the newer 800JB drives, regardless of the RAID card brand?
I have two variations of the WD800JB's in my array, one is WD800JB-00CRA1 (older OEM drive from newegg), and the other is WD800JB-00FMA0 (just bought OEM from newegg a couple weeks ago). The 00FMA0 I believe is the one that went out on me, it seems to be functioning fine now though...

So essentially there is just a problem with WD's drives working suitably in raid arrays? or?

 

[Cerb]

My guess is some little physical or firmware difference gets them out of sync...or something.
The other three drives are working fine together in a RAID 5. The difference is that they came out of the same box. They were bought from one guy at one time, and almost certainly came off the assembly line at the same time--IE, they are as close to identical as it gets.

 

[Snapdragon]

Well, I'll be damned.

Here I sit, with eight brand new WD800JB - 00FMA0 drives.

I am attempting to put them into eight SuperSwap 1000 enclosures and run them on 2 x SX4000 lite (promise) controllers.

During formatting in Linux, one or two drives go POOF! About 30 seconds in. And right after a small period of inactivity.

So I download the acoustic file, and it tells me these drives DO NOT REQUIRE updating. So you're telling me they shipped them "loud" ? I find that hard to believe.

Stuck, and angry.

 

[imported_Silencer00]

I hear ya man!! I dont suppose anyone with a non-WD 80G 8MB cache drive would want to trade? As long as you dont run raid I guess there are no problems... this is obnoxious

 

[Snapdragon]

The drives are going back to my supplier for Seagates.

The dumb this is they will run if I use Windows XP. It's only under Linux that they junk out. Or, they junk out FASTER. Not to say they wouldn't junk out under Windows.

 

[Soulkeeper]

i have no problems with my maxtor and western digital drives on my fasttrack 100
linux and windows both work well for me

 

[Snapdragon]

Yes, but which WD drives.

 

[imported_Silencer00]

Im running WXP, doesnt work at all for me. In fact, sometimes if one of the drives dies out my cpu utilization will run around 75% constantly, its really odd. I thought raid1 would solve all my problems, but its only created more Not sure if I want to take the time to replace these drives with another manufacturer's or just ditch the raid...ive just had so many drives crash out lately that it made a lot of sense; guess not....

 

[Snapdragon]

I've gone back to the Seagates. I started a scandisk surface scan on them last night, it's scheduled to run until about ... Saturday morning.

 

[MichaelD]

FWIW, I remove the jumpers on any WD drives running as Master on their own IDE channel, w/o any other IDE (slave) devices. I've had no probs this way.

 

[Snapdragon]

It only seems to be this one specific set of one model that's doing it.

Promise says run the patch and run with no jumpers, but running the patch tells me they don't need the patch. Besides, they run WAY too hot. Even in their own alumnium enclosure with heatsinks and a 6000 rpm fan they were hovering 80 degrees in the case. And I've got 8? No thanks.

 

[imported_Silencer00]

So the seagates run without any problems? I think I might pick up a couple of those...