RAID-0 temporarily hanging

[davidyeo]

I just raided 2 WD 36gig Raptors on a Broadcom 4852 Raid Controller in
RAID-0 configuration. This is my O/S disk with Windows XP Pro on it.

The Windows install went fine on it, but working in Windows, I notice
the raided drives will sometimes hang for maybe 4-5 seconds where I
can't even move the mouse cursor. The hang will eventually clears up,
but this is extremely annoying. It seems to happen when I'm
transferring a lot of data or accessing other hard drives on the raid
controller. Is this common for raided drives? I updated to the latest
firmware and Windows XP drivers.

Thanks for any help or suggestions.

 

[Timothy Drouillard]

No it's not normal.
One of the HD's may be developing problems.

A while ago I too had two 36gig raptors running in a RAID0 array and loved
it.

After a year or more. mine would sometimes pause as your's is. or would not
boot the first time.

Most hard drives these days support SMART which a type of self monitoring
and auto reparing defects.

Unfortunatly, if the drives are in a RAID, the SMART features cannot be
accessed. I don't know why. If you could check the SMART status of the
drives, it might be able to tell you if and which of the drives is starting
to develop problems.

I finally decided to replace my two 36gig raptors with a single 74gig
raptor.

Once I did that, I could seperate the two 36gig raptors and run them as
single drives. Once I did that, I found that one of them was indeed
developing errors, ran WD's diagnostics, reported to WD the error the
diagnostics reported, and the issued a rma for the bad drive.

I sent the bad drive in, and they sent me a replacement which is still
running a year or two later in another system of mine.

 

[davidyeo]

Thanks for the response. When I get back home, I'll run some
diagnostics. I really really hope my drives aren't going bad.

 

[sbb78247]

Thanks for the response. When I get back home, I'll run some
diagnostics. I really really hope my drives aren't going bad.

it's not all good though

some vendors software will not run on a raid partion like western digital
for one.

 

[davidyeo]

Just did extended checks on both drives and they both checkout with out
any errors.
Should I try using WD's utility to "write all 0's" to the drives and
doing a reinstall? How does "writing all 0's" to the drives differ
from formatting the hard drives via Windows XP Pro installation?

 

[Colonel Blip]

Hello, (e-mail address removed)!
You wrote on 10 Aug 2005 11:50:41 -0700:

I had a very similar experience with a new Asus A8V m/b and two SATA Maxtor
drives. On the Asus one can setup a RAID on either a Promise chip or a Via
chip. When I installed my RAID0 on the Promise I had the same kind of
performance as you are describing. I ran several HD performance programs and
checked the individual drives and could not find a drive hardware problem.
When I swithched to the Via RAID0 chip all of the problems went away.
Possibility exists you have a faulty controller.

Thanks,

Colonel Blip.
E-mail: (e-mail address removed)

d> I just raided 2 WD 36gig Raptors on a Broadcom 4852 Raid Controller in
d> RAID-0 configuration. This is my O/S disk with Windows XP Pro on it.

d> The Windows install went fine on it, but working in Windows, I notice
d> the raided drives will sometimes hang for maybe 4-5 seconds where I
d> can't even move the mouse cursor. The hang will eventually clears up,
d> but this is extremely annoying. It seems to happen when I'm
d> transferring a lot of data or accessing other hard drives on the raid
d> controller. Is this common for raided drives? I updated to the latest
d> firmware and Windows XP drivers.

d> Thanks for any help or suggestions.

 

[sbb78247]

Just did extended checks on both drives and they both checkout with
out any errors.
Should I try using WD's utility to "write all 0's" to the drives and
doing a reinstall? How does "writing all 0's" to the drives differ
from formatting the hard drives via Windows XP Pro installation?

it returns the drive to the same state it was in when you opened the box.
in other words it cleans all of the crap off and gives you a fresh start.