files disappearing too often, chkdsk finds them

[klaus]

increasingly often files are disappearing on drive D. In the beginning
I had to do a reboot and chkdsk every 3 months, now every two weeks.

Chkdsk recovers all files, but they are too often missing when needed
to be sent on air (it's a radio station audio archive).

It is a ntfs file system, 80GB big, increasingly full, on a hardware
raid 1 (Controller Card PCI-SATA Dawicontrol DC 150) out of two 80 GB
SATA disks. There are no error messages about the disks or the raid,
neither from the monitoring program of Dawicontrol nor windows (XP
prof.).

What could cause this? If it is one of the hard disks, why are there no
errors? If it is ntfs, how can I cure this?

thanks for advice in advance

 

[jg]

does the PC get turned off instead of shutting down first?
power off the PC is bad and does cause corruption in the file system. such
the problem you are experiencing.

Is there adequate uninterruptible supply to ensure the PC does not get power
interruption or undesirable fluctuation of power? Also the power cord in
place securely for the PC?

How often the PC get restarted ( start menu, shutdown, restart no the reset
button nor the power button)? depends on usage, as a rule of thumb, it
should be restarted about once a week or as often as once a day. ( lots of
update, opening and closing of documents, and usage of some applications)

if none of the above causing problem, you want to check for memory, hard
drive problem.

In any case, you may want to increase your storage capacity
- the most inexpensive way put less often used files on another single
large IDE drive and leave only often used files on the fast drive
- cost a bit more and a more work, replace the drive with larger ones
- last method increased capacity and more reliability using Raid 5 ( minimum
of 3 drives, 4 is even faster)

Nowadays, a decent controller for 4 drives is about $100 or sometime less.
with that you can connect 3 or 4 drives in so call raid 5 which gives you
speed and reliability. 3 drives of 80 Gb typically sell for less than 3
x$90 each..

if you are interested in faster, more reliably file system, and you are in
Edmonton area, but not wanting to pay full price, we may be able to make
arrangement for you to have my 3 almost new Seagate SATA NCQ drives ( 2
months old ) for a discount.

It still has about 5 yr of warranty minus 2 months. I am about to upgrade
to larger drives

 

[jg]

oh, you should also mention, you should
check for malware,
defrag drive

Nonetheless, as you said, it is getting full, so you do need to expand the
storage capacity one way or another.

 

[sbb78247]

<snip> if you are interested in faster, more reliably file system, and you
are in Edmonton area, but not wanting to pay full price, we may be
able to make arrangement for you to have my 3 almost new Seagate SATA
NCQ drives ( 2 months old ) for a discount.

It still has about 5 yr of warranty minus 2 months. I am about to
upgrade to larger drives

watch out klaus, it looks like jg is making an offer for a rendezvous!

 

[klaus]

HI jg, thanks for the advice,

does the PC get turned off instead of shutting down first?

no, it is shut down about once a week, all programs are closed before
that.

Is there adequate uninterruptible supply to ensure the PC does not get power
interruption or undesirable fluctuation of power? Also the power cord in
place securely for the PC?

the server shows no signs that it is suffering from fluctuating power.
We will attach it to the uninterruptible power supply now to make sure.

if none of the above causing problem, you want to check for memory, hard
drive problem.

how can memory cause missing files that are found by chkdsk but no
other
problems? Is it really realistic as an explanation?

We are now removing single hard disks and the controller to see if the
problem stops

In any case, you may want to increase your storage capacity

not in the near future, and even if we did, it would also be full in a
few weeks,
because the personell always uses all the ressources and makes good use
of it.

The question is: has NTFS the tendency to suffer under missing files
when it is nearly full? If not, it's not he cause of the problem, is
it?

if you are interested in faster, more reliably file system, and you are in
Edmonton area

no, but thanks