First time using RAID, array failed within hours.

Soldato
Joined
19 Jan 2003
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Bristol, UK
Hi guys,

Been meaning to go RAID1 for ages so bought a second WD 5000AAKS. Backed up all of my data to a couple of external HDD's incase of any issues and also can remove the partition table and start a fresh.

I have partitioned off 60gb and installed Vista after having issues with installing XP (BSOD upon installation of intel chipset drivers which then prevented Windows from booting).

The array has been reported as degraded so I rebuilt within Windows Vista.

It has now reported as degraded again whilst formatting off a 300gb data partition.

As I only installed Vista around mid-afternoon today this is all rather sudden!

I have now reverted to IDE mode and booted up my WD diagnostic CD to test the brand new hdd (the one that has reported as failing both times).

A quick test reveals no problems and a quick google reports lots of weird issues with the ICH9 chipset when using for RAID.

I am now running the extended test on the disk and will go from here.

Would it be worthwhile zero'ing both discs or is the ICH9 indeed crap and I should get a proper RAID controller?

If the latter which controller is decent?

Thanks,

Chris
 
I have been running a Raid 1 array on an ICH9R controler for months with no issues. I am using RE (Raid edition) western digital disks (WD5000ABYS) which may be a key difference.
 
Why do people at home use RAID1? :confused:

I use it because I have a lot of photos and music on my PC, yes it gets backed up to an external disk, but rebuilding an array is far faster than rebuilding an OS, installing all the apps, restoring all the data etc.

Plus hard disks are so cheap it makes sense, also read speeds are better than no raid (in theory).
 
Why do people at home use RAID1? :confused:
I have a home office that I run my business from hence important data.

Right, I have the latest BIOS, latest chipset and latest Intel Matrix drivers.

I have zero'd off both drives. Swapped them to different SATA ports.

Rebuilt a new array and within a couple of hours the array has degraded, once again the culprit is the new WD drive.

WD Diag tools show the drive as error free still though.

Any further ideas?
 
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is that the idle timer on the drives? if so i used wdidle tool to disable the idle timer on all my wd drives otherwise they would keep parking the heads every 8 seconds and easily exceed thier head park reccomended limit within 100 days of use.
 
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