IMSM 8.8/8.9/9.5 & Win7 in-box RAID driver - Random drive failures with 8.9

[idata]

This thread is effectively a continuation of "/thread/5036?start=0&tstart=0 Random drive fails with new Matrix Storage Manager 8.9" that has been locked - a pity because it was a valuable source if information.

I am about to conduct a major hardware and OS update of a PC having a RAID10 setup. Previously the system has been running 8.8 under Vista without problems. The update will include Win7, but I am uncertain which version of IMSM/IRST to use:-

• Version 8.8.0.1009 is not certified for Win7,
• 8.9.0.1023 is certified for Win7 but has the well documented problem with dropping drives,
• the pre-release RST 9.5.0.1037 has still not been officially released, and judging from web reports has many other problems,
• or the in-box Win7 driver..........

Intel's Elizabeth, in /thread/5036?start=423&tstart=0 post 423 of the original thread, stated that the Win7 in-box driver is similar to 8.9.0.1023, but not identical. Has anyone using the Win7 in-box RAID driver had any problems with this version? However, I think that unless the "manager" part of IMSM has been separately installed the user may not be aware that it was randomly dropping drives from the array if they recover quickly.

I would appreciate feedback from anyone using the embedded Win7 RAID driver.

[idata]

getho wrote:

I hope someone can help! Please!

I've gone from 8.9 to 8.8 and then about 3 weeks ago to 9.6.0.1014

Everything fine except today:

I got a message in windows from the storage manager saying one drive had failed (the same drive that always failed under 8.8. HOWEVER:

this time on reboot ALL of the drives show up in the IMSM bios as "OFFLINE MEMBER"

Never having had this before I have no idea where to go next. DO I create raid volume at this point? Are the disks really offline - I mean is it possible there is a hardware issue?

EDIT:

OK, I pulled out the failed drive, testing it on another computer in WD's diagnostic: always comes out fine, though.

Its always the same port that fails for me - anyone else find this?

I've NEVER had another port fail always port 2. Is it possible the sata port is dodgy?

I have had good drives go offline when a drive has "failed" on some of the early versions of IMSM. A poor/failing PSU can cause this type of problem.

With IMSM there was a facility for including the non-member drives back into the array. I seem to remember that right-clicking on the non-member drives gave the option of bringing them back into the array. I don't know how the process works with RST, but there is probably something similar. If all drives are out and the system will not boot then try bringing them back into the array using the intel Option ROM

I would not try to create anothjer RAID volume because you will probably lose all your data.

With reagard to Port 2 - have you tried a new cable and ensured that the SATA connectors are pushed fully home?

[idata]

JefUK wrote:

With IMSM there was a facility for including the non-member drives back into the array. I seem to remember that right-clicking on the non-member drives gave the option of bringing them back into the array. I

The array is back (when I removed the dodgy drive), the question is how to ad it back to the array in RST

The only option with the raid is to rebuild it to another drive

The only option with the drive is to "mark as spare"

EDIT: I took a punt and marked as spare, its addedit back to the array and is rebuilding. ("Mark as spare"? how about "make available to array" instead?)

[Daniel_T_Intel]

You should be able to "right mouse click" on the failed drive to reset it to normal. This will initiate a volume rebuild.

[idata]

F**K!@

So I recovered a a degraded disk and a folder that contained a project I did last week is corrupt

"The file or directory is corrupt and unreadable"

Class suit anyone?

Anyone know how I might start trying to recover this data.

Anyone know WHY this would've happened. How can I test the raid.

[idata]

"The only slightly annoying thing is the pop-up which informs you that the array is protected against loss of data."

I always thought that message was annoying. Who wanted to see a small pop-up from the RST icon with the words "Disk and Failure" in the same sentence. Especially for those of use coming off our experiences with the earlier MSM ver. 8.9. It always caused me to panic even though its purpose is to reassure us.

Fortunately you can get rid of that pop-up. Just right click the RST icon and unselect "Show Storage System Information",

I've been running 9.5.4.1001 since around December 2010 without a single problem, I recently upgraded to 9.6.0.1014 and have had no issues except that after initial logon, the RST icon indicates that the RST service is not running. After a while (1 to 2 minutes) the icon changes back to normal.

I have a Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5 with the ICH10R chip.

[idata]

I have now installed RST 9.6 on 7 new or upgraded systems. The driver has worked correctly on all of them, without any drives being dropped at random. It should be noted however, that he upgraded systems all worked satisfactorily with older versions of IMSM.

It is now over 4 weeks since I updated my own system (WD Blacks in RAID10) from 8.8 to 9.6, again working without any problems at all. Previously when this system was updated from 8.8 to 8.9 it dropped drives twice within 2 hours, before I realised that the driver was the cause, and reverted to 8.8.

My experience supports the information (probably from Intel) that the it was a corner condition which was only discovered once Intel had a system that exhibited the failure, and the problem was finally fixed in 9.6.

I do find that the system tray popup saying that the "system is protected" a nuisance, especially to those users conditioned by the "missing drive" popup from 8.9. The message can be turned off, but it seems that turning this off also turns off the useful "verification & repair" popup. The popup arrangement of 9.6 seems over-complicated and not as good as that in 8.8, which gave all the information required without being intrusive under normal conditions.

[idata]

I have RAID 1 with 9.6.0.1014 on a W7 64bit. Seems to be working fine unless I have to do a forced restart if the computer hangs. Then I always have to rebuild a disk. Would this be the situation if I bought a dedicated RAID card to use instead? Appreciate any opinions or experiences. Thx Ray

[idata]

Do you mean "Rebuild" or "Verify & Repair" ? If you mean Verify and Repair, then this is normal and correct behaviour. It's being done to ensure the integrity of your data. If you want to take the risk, you can always cancel it.

[idata]

Whenever I have to do a forced reboot, one of the two discs has to totally rebuild (a few hours, 2-2tb Seagate Enterprise drives). Today after rebuilding, it said the disc failed. We tested each one separately and they worked fine. On reboot. the startup wanted to reconfigure the RAID. I'm done with this RAID, more trouble than it has been worth. I am going to try an Adaptec for something more robust. Hope it works better.

[idata]

I've reported the dropped drive/degraded RAID problems I've had using the older MSM 8.9 with a Gigabyte EX58UD5 then nothing but success with the new RST 9.6.0.1014. Still running great.

But last week I installed Win7 x64 onto an ASUS P5E-VM HDMI system with a RAID 5 as the data drive. I didn't bother updating the Intel drives because the P5E uses an ICH9R controller. I assumed the driver problems only effected the ICH10R.

Not true apparently. Within a few days, I got the characteristic non-responsiveness then the indication that the drive was dropped from the RAID and the RAID was degraded. then loaded the RST driver and after reformatting the "bad" drive, put it back into the RAID.

It's working fine so far.

[idata]

Just reminding you that your RAID volume's write-back cache should be disabled to avoid data loss when system hangs, restarts or during power-failures.

Mamoon Khader

Amman, Jordan

[idata]

I have the same problem with Win7 64bit OS and the forced restart using 9.6.0.1014. I use all Seagate drives of same size and type. Seagate indicated that after 9 reported failures under 8.9 I would no longer be able to send drives back. Now I am getting the same thing. One showed as failed 10 days ago, so I updated to 9.6.0.1014 and now it rebuilds every other day or when I do the forced restart. I have had cache on and off and it seems to work better with it on.... but need to hear if others have an suggesstions.

[idata]

Dump it and get a dedicated card, like an adaptec. I wrecked a drive too. Spent way too much time messin' with it. Now no more problems.

[idata]

Dan_Wilder ,

I've had too much troubles with it until I installed latest driver ver 9.6.0.1014 several weeks ago and my RAID became amazingly stable with no single drop, failure or rebuild. BTW, I am using Win7 64-bit ultimate with 4-drives RAID-10 .