Thoughts about compatibility issues with Areca 1220 and Samsung F1 HD103UJ

I recently bought an Areca 1220 and had a few issues with drives dropping. After a bit of digging around on Areca's website I found this, Unfortunately, I had already purchased 8 F1's.

Anyone else have issues with with this card and drive combo? I downgraded the drives to 150 and turned off NCQ, (as well as making the new array raid 6 to potentially handle failures)
I'm thinking that I may return the drives to the Egg, but 15% restock + the added cost of different drives is gonna suck.

Thoughts?

Beats purchasing two dozen 1tb green drives to find out the Areca controllers dumps them left and right.

My awnser to you is to sell those 8 drives, you can basically get your money back and buy something like seagates.

Newegg will waive the restocking fee if you buy something else ive even gotten them to comp my shipping. Their customer service is great.

Anyone have recommendations on what drive will work? I was looking at the Hitachi and it is on the "approved list" from areca. But I'd hate to be in the same place I stated.

Oh this shouldn't be this hard....

I use Seagates with my Areca's.

Ockie said:

I use Seagates with my Areca's.

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Seagates FTW. Though many others will roll their eyes at me. Ockie knows whats up.

I have an ARC-1220 with 4 Samsung 103UJ drives. I asked for advice on this list before making my purchase decision and the replies convinced me to try these drives with the Areca controller.

Unfortunately, as I'm installing Ubuntu now, one of the drives just dropped out.

Not yet sure what I'm going to do...

I have been using 4 WD 6400aaks with my Areca 1210 and they have been flawless in RAID5 for almost 3 months now. Not a single drive has ever dropped out.

I'm on the phone withe newegg right now, they are giving me the run around about the 15% restock. thats going to be $150!

OK, they said that they would take them back if they are unopend. (cough), is there a way to tell if they have been used? (asuming that I low level format them back to stock?)

newdamage1 said:

OK, they said that they would take them back if they are unopend. (cough), is there a way to tell if they have been used? (asuming that I low level format them back to stock?)

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I'm assuming the plastic baggie seal should still be there.

Ockie said:

I'm assuming the plastic baggie seal should still be there.

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of course, physicality I was going to make them look unopend, hell thats not hard, plastic clamshell and a wrap of bubble wrap. I was wondering (aloud) if they would actually check the drives, and if there is a tool that they would use to look, and if and how I could counter it. I was thinking use the EStool and do a low level format, but would they know the diffrence between that and if I just knocked the partition table off.

newdamage1 said:

of course, physicality I was going to make them look unopend, hell thats not hard, plastic clamshell and a wrap of bubble wrap. I was wondering (aloud) if they would actually check the drives, and if there is a tool that they would use to look, and if and how I could counter it. I was thinking use the EStool and do a low level format, but would they know the diffrence between that and if I just knocked the partition table off.

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No one will power up the hard drive to check on ya.

But delete all of your pr0n first!

That sucks to hear Areca doesn't play nice with those drives. Did you try emailing their tech support and if so what was their response? I've only got Seagates in mine right now, no problems in over a year or 2. But that's nice to know some drives don't work well for when i upgrade them. Those 1.5 tb's coming out are looking very tempting, hopefully they'll be under 250$ a piece.

oplin said:

That sucks to hear Areca doesn't play nice with those drives. Did you try emailing their tech support and if so what was their response? I've only got Seagates in mine right now, no problems in over a year or 2. But that's nice to know some drives don't work well for when i upgrade them. Those 1.5 tb's coming out are looking very tempting, hopefully they'll be under 250$ a piece.

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Sure did, I sent them an email asking if they had something in the works to fix the issue, this is what I got back:

Dear Sir,

i am sorry, we don't have any solution on the Samsung compatible issue until now.
in our test, the disable NCQ can fix abnormal drive failure problem.

but same solution can't works with some customers, and also some customers can works with NCQ enabled.
so currently we have to suggest customer don't use this drive with our controller now, because we can't really sure what problem this hard drive have.


Best Regards,


Kevin Wang

Areca Technology Tech-support Division
[/url]

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I did as he suggested (even before I sent the email, after reading posts here and elsewhere) it was fine for about 24 hours and as soon as I started to stress them copying my data over, one popped offline.

Honestly I would have waited for a fix if 150 and some other setting turned off would have worked. I went a little nuts and got the Seagate ES's as the replacements, the 5 year warrenty was looking good in my agitated state.

Ugh thats some poor english, I can appreciate the attempt, however.

MountainX said:

I have an ARC-1220 with 4 Samsung 103UJ drives. I asked for advice on this list before making my purchase decision and the replies convinced me to try these drives with the Areca controller.

Unfortunately, as I'm installing Ubuntu now, one of the drives just dropped out.

Not yet sure what I'm going to do...

Click to expand...

You listened to the wrong people. The people you should listen to are people like me, odditory, xenotype, gvrieze, blazestorm, alcuin, etc. We are the guys who ran into these problems with these controllers before and a lot of other storage based issues I personally ran into this problem before with the arecas and thats why I tell people to go with Seagates only (odditory runs Hitatchis just fine on his)

Sorry if I left anyone out of that list.

My recomendation to you would be to sell your drives or return them and buy drives that you know are tried and tested with your controllers (cough* like seagates *cough)

If you read their Knowledge Base or whatever they have for that, they have some pretty poor english responses and i've had that when i've emailed them. Funny they are having problems with the drives seems like it should be an easy fix.

Nice choice in drives, 5 year warranty seems like the way to go. Although if they die after 3 years is it really going to be worth replacing them? I say that now cause any drive i've had die it wasn't worth replacing it was so small but it seems like anything above 500 gigs would be good for the next 10 years or more just for basic os install and applications. Unless MS comes out with some super bloated file system or something.

oplin said:

If you read their Knowledge Base or whatever they have for that, they have some pretty poor english responses and i've had that when i've emailed them. Funny they are having problems with the drives seems like it should be an easy fix.

Nice choice in drives, 5 year warranty seems like the way to go. Although if they die after 3 years is it really going to be worth replacing them? I say that now cause any drive i've had die it wasn't worth replacing it was so small but it seems like anything above 500 gigs would be good for the next 10 years or more just for basic os install and applications. Unless MS comes out with some super bloated file system or something.

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It's not just their controllers, a lot (not all) of other high end controllers are having the same issues with these drives.

Ockie said:

You listened to the wrong people. The people you should listen to are people like me, odditory, xenotype, gvrieze, blazestorm, alcuin, etc. We are the guys who ran into these problems with these controllers before and a lot of other storage based issues I personally ran into this problem before with the arecas and thats why I tell people to go with Seagates only (odditory runs Hitatchis just fine on his)

Sorry if I left anyone out of that list.

My recomendation to you would be to sell your drives or return them and buy drives that you know are tried and tested with your controllers (cough* like seagates *cough)

Click to expand...

OK, I see that I did listen to the wrong advice, but it was the only advice I received. (The prior thread post was at http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1324193).

Does it matter which Seagate drives? With WD, they have RE versions for RAID. Is there a RAID-approved model for Seagate drives? I see two different price points for Seagate drives on NewEgg. I hate to pay for the more expensive drives without knowing what the difference is.

I'm looking for 1 TB drives.

How about the WD drives?

Those Seagate ES drives are 42% more than the Samsungs! Wow. I can't really afford that.

The regular Seagate (Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST31000340AS 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM) is only slightly more (about $20). Is that drive OK with the Areca RAID controllers (under heavy load, etc.)?

MountainX said:

Those Seagate ES drives are 42% more than the Samsungs! Wow. I can't really afford that.

The regular Seagate (Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST31000340AS 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM) is only slightly more (about $20). Is that drive OK with the Areca RAID controllers (under heavy load, etc.)?

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AS versions works great. Sometimes you can catch the AS's on frys.com for $159, you just have to keep your eyes peeled.

Ockie said:

AS versions works great. Sometimes you can catch the AS's on frys.com for $159, you just have to keep your eyes peeled.

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Thank you. I will have to order them from NewEgg (else they will charge me 15% restocking fee on the Samsung drives).

What is the difference between the AS and ES Seagate drives? Is there a link somewhere that explains it? Thanks. (It is hard to search for "AS" on google because it ignores that term.)

i think ES is for Enterprise stuff and the AS is a Consumer level drive. I would look at www.storagereview.com on both the drives they have alot of good knowledge. Just guessing i'm going to say the ES can handle more operations per second and other things that are found in a server environment.

I have 10 of the 7200.10 AS drives and performance has been pretty good, RAID Array has been stable, no issues with it. They had 5 year warranty's on them so i got them, i figured for my light usage n them i wouldn't need anything super fast.

MountainX said:

Thank you. I will have to order them from NewEgg (else they will charge me 15% restocking fee on the Samsung drives).

What is the difference between the AS and ES Seagate drives? Is there a link somewhere that explains it? Thanks. (It is hard to search for "AS" on google because it ignores that term.)

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Mainly MTBF ratings (ES has a high MTBF). The ES has a tighter tolerance in testing as its intended for 24/7 operation, but otherwise they are the same drives essentially, and they both carry 5 year warranties.

Ockie said:

AS versions works great. Sometimes you can catch the AS's on frys.com for $159, you just have to keep your eyes peeled.

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I saw a thread somewhere where they were having issues with the AS, let me see if I can find it. (it wasn't them knocking offline, it was studdering during multi-access video playback)

MountainX said:

Thank you. I will have to order them from NewEgg (else they will charge me 15% restocking fee on the Samsung drives).

What is the difference between the AS and ES Seagate drives? Is there a link somewhere that explains it? Thanks. (It is hard to search for "AS" on google because it ignores that term.)

Click to expand...

They waved the restock for me, but it was under the condition they they were never installed. Just hope they dont check the Smart data.
I was about a millimeter from getting the AS drives as its pretty much 1 free if you get 7, but the HDDcompatibily list was eating at me. Now that I see Ockie got them and is going good, I probably would have. (no buyers remorse here, nope.)

Ockie said:

Mainly MTBF ratings (ES has a high MTBF). The ES has a tighter tolerance in testing as its intended for 24/7 operation, but otherwise they are the same drives essentially, and they both carry 5 year warranties.

Click to expand...

OK, I ordered the Seagate AS drives to replace the Samsung drives. Thanks for the help.

EDIT: Ooops.. I just saw the post by newdamage1 about possible AS drive problems. Hopefully that isn't true... But please let me know what you find.

newdamage1 said:

They waved the restock for me, but it was under the condition they they were never installed. Just hope they dont check the Smart data.

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They just waived the restocking fee for me and they made no mention about the condition that the drives were not opened and never installed. I did not place my order for the new drives until they agreed to waive the restocking fee. Maybe that helped. But they were very nice and helpful.

I just hope they pack my new HDDs properly. I offered to pay $5 extra for some extra foam in the shipping box, but they wouldn't take my money.

It is interesting that the packing NewEgg uses would violate the warranty on a HDD returned to the manufacturer under RMA. NewEgg seriously needs to review their HDD packing.

newdamage1 said:

I saw a thread somewhere where they were having issues with the AS, let me see if I can find it. (it wasn't them knocking offline, it was studdering during multi-access video playback)

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HD video playback is smooth as butter. Pr-n, err I mean movie playback is also smooth as butter.

I can saturate a quad port gigabit nic and still play videos smoothly

Ockie said:

HD video playback is smooth as butter. Pr-n, err I mean movie playback is also smooth as butter.

I can saturate a quad port gigabit nic and still play videos smoothly

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Cool - thanks for letting us know.

Ockie said:

HD video playback is smooth as butter. Pr-n, err I mean movie playback is also smooth as butter.

I can saturate a quad port gigabit nic and still play videos smoothly

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Here's the thread, but it seems it was for the 7200.10AS not 7200.11AS. I was close. but it looks like they were having issues with the ES's and just about everything else but the hitachi's. Oh boy...

newdamage1 said:

Here's the thread, but it seems it was for the 7200.10AS not 7200.11AS. I was close. but it looks like they were having issues with the ES's and just about everything else but the hitachi's. Oh boy...

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In that thread, did you notice JustusIV saying, "Seagate says to not use the AS drives in arrays."

But I am thankful Ockie has tested them and had good results.

I didn't realize it was so difficult to find the right combination of drives and controller.

newdamage1 said:

Here's the thread, but it seems it was for the 7200.10AS not 7200.11AS. I was close. but it looks like they were having issues with the ES's and just about everything else but the hitachi's. Oh boy...

Click to expand...

I have 5x750GB 7200.10AS's on my Areca 1220 and I haven't had any problems on either system it has run (A8N-SLI and IP35-Pro).

However, my first 1220 was really flakey and would drop drives randomly. Funny story - my wife (gf at the time) threw out the box. Newegg wouldn't take it back for a RMA without a box, and I couldn't get Areca to respond to my e-mails. Eventually, I just sent it to newegg who apparently lost my card and eventually sent a new one.

Dodged a bullet on that one...

I've pretty much stuck to Seagate on RAID installations. They seem to be "the" manufacturer that everyone tests their RAID systems with. I think I own like 9 of the 7200.10AS drives between my Areca and my ReadyNAS box.

I would return the controller before the drives... I run the same drives in RAID 6 on an Adaptec 5805 with no problems.

ctrudel said:

I would return the controller before the drives... I run the same drives in RAID 6 on an Adaptec 5805 with no problems.

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Adaptec controllers are typically more forgiving when it comes to drive compatibility. But in the end for the OP, the problem is that the controller would be a bigger loss than simply exchanging the drives. Also, it doesn't hurt to get some longer warrantied drives

UPDATE:
I am doing some tests with the Areca 1220 and the Samsung Spinpoint F1 (HD103UJ) drives.

My results indicate that the compatibility problems are not present with RAID 0. I also suspect they are present only with RAID levels involving parity calculations (such as 3, 5 and 6). In addition, all the reports of incompatibility that I've seen are from people using RAID 5. My guess is that since RAID 0 works fine, RAID 10, etc. would work fine too.

My testing is informal, but I set up an array and copied gigabytes of data to it. I did simultaneous read and write operations. I maxed out the CPUs on my dual Xeon server with so many simultaneous file transfer operations, yet I never had a drive drop out like I did previously with RAID 5.

Anyone else have similar experiences to report?

I almost made a mistake and bought F1s. honestly, I had not been reading a lot on raid array and drives since I finished Plutonium 3, and never saw that F1s and Arecas are a no go.... But I am I sticking to Seagate as always, like their warranty, I wanted the F1s, since their power consumption is way better, but no go on my 1280ML...... Thanks goes to Ockie, for catching this....

Just out of curiosity ..., why not dump the controller instead of the drives? Seems like the more logical thing to do considering that the F1s are great in all other aspects, no?

Thuleman said:

Just out of curiosity ..., why not dump the controller instead of the drives? Seems like the more logical thing to do considering that the F1s are great in all other aspects, no?

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The Areca controllers have speed and features that no other brand has.....

NEW INFO:
I thought the Samsung HD103UJ drives would work with the Areca controller if I used them in a non-parity RAID level (such as RAID-0). So I tried it.

I set up two of the F1's as a RAID-0 array and I set up two as passthrough disks.

The disk performance was very poor and I found errors like this:


as well as this error:

Not sure if that second error is related, but the first one is for device dm-6 which is the 2x HD103UJ array mentioned above. No other devices are giving errors. So now I suspect these drives won't even work with this controller in RAID-0. What do you guys think? Agree? Or could my errors be from something else? What should my next steps be? Thanks.