Hot swap sata on SiI 3132 or ICH74 (MSI 955x Platinum mobo)

[935main]

Hello,

We've got a couple MSI 955x Platinum motherboards that we're using for
a couple workgroup servers running windows server 2003. The Msi 955x
has 4 sata II ports running off the ICH74 chipset and 2 more connected
to the SiI 3132.

Ideally, we'd have all 4 channels on the ICH7R configured in a RAID 5
array for the OS and data files, with 1 of the channels on the SiI 3132
hooked up to a hot-swap sata enclosure. Has anyone set up a
configuration like this successfully? If need be we could only use 3
of the 4 channels on the ICH7R leaving the 4th channel for hotswap (if
the SiI controller can't hack it) but preferably we'd use all the
channels on the ICH7R in one raid array.

Everything we've tried works for awhile but the system usually ends up
freezing or blue screening after awhile.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Mesan

 

[Arno Wagner]

Hello,

We've got a couple MSI 955x Platinum motherboards that we're using for
a couple workgroup servers running windows server 2003. The Msi 955x
has 4 sata II ports running off the ICH74 chipset and 2 more connected
to the SiI 3132.

Ideally, we'd have all 4 channels on the ICH7R configured in a RAID 5
array for the OS and data files, with 1 of the channels on the SiI 3132
hooked up to a hot-swap sata enclosure. Has anyone set up a
configuration like this successfully? If need be we could only use 3
of the 4 channels on the ICH7R leaving the 4th channel for hotswap (if
the SiI controller can't hack it) but preferably we'd use all the
channels on the ICH7R in one raid array.

Everything we've tried works for awhile but the system usually ends up
freezing or blue screening after awhile.

While swapping or while ordinary operation? And are therte no
log-entries or something that telkls you what the actual proplem is?
I am no sure how stable software-RAID is on Windows. On Linux it is
very reliable. If that is the issue, maybe move to hardwaare-RAID
(make sure to have at least one spare controller and staay away from
the trash Adaptec profduces). If the hot-swap is the issue, maybe move
to USB or Firewire for that.

Arno

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

While swapping or while ordinary operation? And are therte no
log-entries or something that telkls you what the actual proplem is?
I am no sure how stable software-RAID is on Windows. On Linux it is
very reliable. If that is the issue, maybe move to hardwaare-RAID
(make sure to have at least one spare controller and staay away from
the trash Adaptec profduces). If the hot-swap is the issue, maybe move
to USB or Firewire for that.

Arnie at his best when completely topped up.