Areca/Hitachi HDD odd behaviour

N

nry

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 10, 2008
Messages
409
I bought myself a very nice Areca ARC1680ix-24 and absolutely love it, so easy to use!

But seem to be having an issue with one of my drives in my new RAID6 array where sometimes on boot the controller detects 7 of the 8 drives, causing an alarm/event to be thrown of a missing device on the array.

After about 5 minutes the drive will appear and the array is back to normal :confused:

I have 8x HDS5C3030ALA630 (Hitachi 5K3000)

What I have tried:
- Moving the drive to a different port on the SAS enclosure, same issue, sometimes detected instantly or takes about 5 minutes.
- Tried a SAS8087 to SATA breakout cable, sometimes dosen't detect instantly
- Tried the drive on a SATA port on the motherboard, no issues what so ever
- SMART - no errors
- Firmware on this drive is the same as 5 other drives in the array

Could it be a failing drive? Seems very odd!
 
The only time I have *ever* had that problem (the exact same one) is when I was using a shitty 950w Rosewill PSU. When I switched over to a Corsair 850w the problem went completely away. A work-around (at the time) was to increase the staggered powerup time on the controller to lower the peak power usage when the machine is first turned on.
 
Never thought of the PSU, thing is don't have any issues with the other 15 drives I have connected at the moment

I have a Corsair HX650
 
Keep playing with different configs and still can't work out what is causing this

Controller info
Firmware Version V1.51 2012-07-04
BOOT ROM Version V1.51 2012-07-04
SAS Firmware Version 4.7.3.0

Wondering if I can update the expander firmware?

Generally it seems to be port 0 of the sas backplane which dosen't work, but sometimes others.

I have tried:
- Different SAS cables
- Different model HDD in same port/slot, detected no problem 100% of the time

Is it possible that the controller doesn't like these drives?

Will see if I can take a PSU out of another machine to test that, but as other drives are showing fine I can't see it being this... worth a try anyway I guess
 
nry said:
I bought myself a very nice Areca ARC1680ix-24 and absolutely love it, so easy to use!

But seem to be having an issue with one of my drives in my new RAID6 array where sometimes on boot the controller detects 7 of the 8 drives, causing an alarm/event to be thrown of a missing device on the array.

After about 5 minutes the drive will appear and the array is back to normal :confused:
Click to expand...

You're not giving enough useful information. Which "SAS enclosure" are you running? Explain the cabling configuration between the Areca controller and backplane. Are you talking about a Norco server chassis? Also, have you tried using a different port on the Areca controller? A 1680ix-24 I once owned developed a weird problem where one of the ports went bad.

If it were me, I'd also check the firmware of the Hitachi drive and see if its much different from the rest. For the record though I've never had a problem with a Hitachi disk that was rectified with a firmware update -- some people are a bit OCD about updating it though and I have a thread at STH with the latest A10 firmware posted: http://forums.servethehome.com/show...arddisks-Thread-(5K3000-7K3000-7K2000)/page18

I'd also probably run a full surface scan of the drive with something like badblocks -- no SMART errors doesn't mean much.

nry said:
Is it possible that the controller doesn't like these drives?
Click to expand...

No.
 
Last edited:
Just tested another PSU, same issue

Going to try another motherboard/cpu/ram setup now
 
odditory said:
You're not giving enough useful information. Which "SAS enclosure" are you running? Explain the cabling configuration between the Areca controller and backplane. Are you talking about a Norco server chassis?

Also, have you tried using a different port on the Areca controller? A 1680ix-24 I once owned developed a weird problem where one of the ports went bad.
Click to expand...


Case I am using is X-Case RM 424, which I think is just a re branded Norco case? Not too sure, was quite limited on options here in the UK
http://www.xcase.co.uk/24-bay-Hotswap-rackmount-chassis-norco-RPC-4224-p/case-xcase-rm424.htm

Power wise:
Each SAS panel (4 HDDs) is connected by 2x molex

8087 Cables between the controller/backplane:
I have tried all of the ports on the controller, tried changing the SAS cables around with no luck
Only port which seems reliable is CH1-CH4 where very rarely does a disk not show

I am using a variation of SAS cables:
2x LSI 80cm - http://www.scan.co.uk/products/80cm-lsi-cbl-ra8087-08m-straight-(sff-8087)-to-right-angle-(sff-8087)
2x Right angled SAS cables which came with the controller
2x Straight SAS cables which came with the controller

Have also tried break out cables (8087 to SATA) with the same issue
 
Using break out cables I just tested again, sometimes all drives show. But in particular slot 13 on this test seems to be the only problematic one

Below shows event log for the drive just 'appearing'
I haven't moved any part during those time periods. They just randomly appear after no specific amount of time
Code: 
2013-02-18 19:02:28 	Enc#2 SLOT 13 	Device Inserted 	  	 
2013-02-18 19:01:20 	H/W Monitor 	Raid Powered On

Code: 
2013-02-18 19:11:31 	Enc#2 SLOT 13 	Device Inserted 	  	 
2013-02-18 19:09:43 	H/W Monitor 	Raid Powered On

I have done a few reboots with the following drives, both in SAS enclosure and using SATA break out cables, they all show up 100% every time
Hitachi H3D10003272S
Seagate ST3200542AS
WD WD10EACS
WD WD10EACSD
SAMSUNG HD103UJ
SAMSUNG HD103UJ
Seagate 9SL145-046
SAMSUNG HD103UJ
WD WD10EACS
SAMSUNG HM121HJ
 
Areca 1882I detects every drive I am having issues with every time (did 6 system starts)

Any ideas anyone?
Wouldn't be a faulty card I assume as other drives show up 100% of the time

Issue with the on board expander?

My hairline is suffering with the stress here haha
 
If the 1882 has no problems then maybe its the card. Just curious, if you already had an 1882i why would you go backwards and putting new money into an older gen SAS-1 product like the 1680ix?
 
Bought the 1680 first for my file server

Then got offered the 1882 at a price I couldnt turn down, this is for my primary server with SSD's though...

Have emailed Areca to see if they are able to offer any light, not very hopeful
 
Well I got woken up this morning by the alarm on the controller this morning, dam that thing is loud! Computer is on the other side of the house from my bed room

Looks like some HDDs dropped out at 5am!

Code: 
2013-02-19 05:45:10 	Enc#2 SLOT 19 	Device Inserted 	  	 
2013-02-19 05:45:10 	Enc#2 SLOT 20 	Device Inserted 	  	 
2013-02-19 05:45:07 	V1 	Failed Volume Revived 	  	 
2013-02-19 05:45:07 	Enc#2 SLOT 17 	Device Inserted 	  	 
2013-02-19 05:45:07 	Enc#2 SLOT 18 	Device Inserted 	  	 
2013-02-19 05:45:05 	Enc#2 SLOT 17 	Device Removed 	  	 
2013-02-19 05:45:05 	Enc#2 SLOT 18 	Device Removed 	  	 
2013-02-19 05:45:05 	Enc#2 SLOT 19 	Device Removed 	  	 
2013-02-19 05:45:04 	R1 	RaidSet Degraded 	  	 
2013-02-19 05:45:04 	R1 	RaidSet Degraded 	  	 
2013-02-19 05:45:04 	R1 	RaidSet Degraded 	  	 
2013-02-19 05:45:03 	Enc#2 SLOT 20 	Device Removed 	  	 
2013-02-19 05:45:03 	V1 	Abort Initialization 	008:09:13 	 
2013-02-19 05:45:02 	V1 	Volume Failed 	  	 
2013-02-19 05:45:02 	V1 	Volume Failed 	  	 
2013-02-19 05:45:02 	V1 	Volume Degraded 	  	 
2013-02-19 05:45:02 	R1 	RaidSet Degraded 	  	 
2013-02-19 05:45:00 	V1 	Volume Degraded 	  	 
2013-02-19 00:51:47 	010.000.001.106 	HTTP Log In

Anyway Areca got back to me with the following

Dear Sir/Madam,

your problem should be same as the known compatibility issue between 3Gb expander and 6Gb drives. the known issue is 3Gb expander may not able to detect 6Gb drives in auto detection mode, you have to force configure expander or hard drive with 3Gb mode to be able to properly detect these drives.

and you can update expander firmware through the RJ11 on the bracket. expander firmware code can be found in our web site and ftp site.


Best Regards,
Click to expand...

So looking at each drives information in the wb control panel its only running at 1.5Gbps

Code: 
Current SATA Mode 	SATA150+NCQ(Depth32)
Supported SATA Mode 	SATA600+NCQ(Depth32)

Will report back later once I get chance to test forcing 3Gbps as might be useful for someone else :)
 
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