ICH10R RAID 0 setup issue.

[TomB]

I have the new Gigabyte GA EX58 UD5 motherboard which has the ICH10R Intel RAID with 6 ports and the GSATA (Gigabyte SATA) with 4 ports. I am running Windows XP Professional SP3 32 bit version as the OS.

I have the Enhance Technology E8-ML external case which has dual SAS Multilane-4 channels and eight bays for drives. I have a dual 4 port to one multilane cable adapter that fits in an empty card slot. So I run 8 sata cables from the MB to the adapter and attach to 2 2-meter multilane cables which run to the external case.

I am having an issue on the ICH10R ports. I have 4 Baracuda 500GB drives that I have configured as RAID 0 for performance with 128K striping. I use the Intel Matrix Storage Console software to create the volume with the four drives are allocated just fine.

When I format this volume as a drive, it is hit or miss as to whether it will format the space. It will get to 100% formatted and then I get the message "format failed" and a will drive show up with a red status on the Intel Matrix status. Intel Matrix will provide the message that a drive has failed, perform a backup. I have tried using 512, 16K and 64K allocation sizes.

I had gotten it fully formatted one time, ran HD Tach and got a 387 Mb/s transfer rate and was able to capture 15 minutes of 1080p HD capture before I got a "delayed write failure" message. At which point one of the drives in the volume turned to a red "error occurred" status on the Intel Matrix.

I change the registry entry to set the file to FFFFFFFF for the SystemPages setting per MS KB#330174. I no longer get the delayed write failure message. As well I turned off the “disk write cache” setting for the hard drives as part of another MS KB.

I have removed the hard drive that gets the message from the case and rebuilt the volume using the remaining three drives. The problem seems to follow to another drive. I have swapped the multilane cables. I have moved the drives within the case from the upper four to the lower four. I moved the drive from port 3 since it was getting the error to port 1 and still it fails.

I am now trying to format each drive individually and use them that way to see if any failures occur.

I would appreciate any help on this issue, since I am running out of hardware based troubleshooting steps. Thanks!

 

[DonDon]

WOW, what a busy setup.

Install HD Tune and check the smart settings on the drives to see if one of them is getting any reallocated sectors yet.

It is really looking like some kind of controller compatibility issue though.

Remove the external stuff and just try the drives plugged into the mobo.

Don

 

[nitrobass24]

Yea that sounds like a SAS controller issue to me as well.
I have that mobo and have zero problems with it.
Any particular reason for the external RAID, why not just throw them in the case?

 

[TomB]

Yea that sounds like a SAS controller issue to me as well.
I have that mobo and have zero problems with it.
Any particular reason for the external RAID, why not just throw them in the case?

Thanks for the help.

I am not using SAS, just extended the SATA to the external case using the multilanex4 cables.

There is not enough room in the case for 8 drives. With the BluRay recorder, the DVD recorder, the ATI 4850x2 board (dual slot and 12" long), the BlackMagic Intensity Pro card, the network card, the cables for the Sata and the fans it was way too tight and not enough airflow room, so I opted for the external case.

I will try connecting them directly to the Sata cables from the MB and see if it an issue with the sata to multilanex4 adapter, the multilane cables, or the case.

 

[TomB]

SOLVED!

I had to set the drive jumpers to 1.5Gb/s transfer due to the length of my SAS Multilanex4 cables (2 Meter).

It is working perfectly now without issue and is FAST. 484Mb/s transfer rates with the 4 Seagate 500Gb in the RAID 0 on the ICH10R.

 

[evt]

Wait a minute, how does the Blackmagic Intensity Pro card capture 1080p? I have the non-pro version and its max is at 1080i, the only difference that I see is that it doesnt have component connections.

 

[TomB]

evt,

I have the option for 1080 30Hz. That is 1080P. 1080i is 59.97Hz. I will have to check, come to think of it my DVR only does 1080i, so I must have done 1080i for this quick test. My DVD player has 1080P, so I will need to check it with that input and see what options I get then.

That is the confusing part of all these pieces. They all have to be set the same and match. BluRay makes it even worse!!!

I am using the component input since I don't have a splitter for the HDMI signal (these things cost mucho $$$$$). I will explore the HDMI later.

Based on the feed, you get different choices for input settings. I believe I had to set this in the control panel setting for the intensity, it only allows what it sees on the input to be selected.

When you go into the Media Capture (?) you can select compressed or uncompressed and start capturing.

I will follow up tonight when I can look at the actual system.