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Hi All,
I've been successfully running Highpoint RR 2680 with 8 disks in two RAID10s for about a year and a half in a dual-boot PC running Windows 7 and Ubuntu 11.04.
It was time to upgrade capacity, so I ordered a Chenbro CK12804 expander since RR2680 only has 2 ports, and a bunch of additional disks. I was actually sent a CK22804 instead, all the better (believe only difference is CK22 is 6Gbps and CK12 is 3Gbps). I'll be limited to 3Gbps anyway by the raid card, but it'll help in the future.
The upgrade was completely successful under Linux (there was nothing to do really). The card & driver see all 15 disks now connected to the raid card through the Chenbro expander, including the existing RAID10s, so effectively I have 7 new uninitialized drives and everything's perfect. I can mount the filesystems on the existing RAID10s and read/write to them via the Chenbro expander, so that confirms all the new cabling between disks and expander and expander and raid card is fine.
Windows on the other hand hangs on boot since addition of the expander (at the Windows logo screen). I discovered that it hangs when it attempts to load the RR2680 driver (obviously). The LEDs on Chenbro give me the right outputs as the driver is being loaded, telling me that the raid card connected to the expander. After that, access LEDs on all disks come on for a brief moment (~10th of a second) and then it just hangs. I would normally expect the access LEDs on the disks to flash quickly for a good second or two as the RAID metadata is read off the disks by the raid card or whatever it does at that point (which is how it looks like when I boot Linux). Also, if I disconnect the disks, but keep Chenbro connected, Windows boots fine and loads the driver, it just hangs when 1 or more disks are connected via Chenbro (I tried literally with just 1 disk plugged, and different ones, hangs on all occasions).
Having wasted half Saturday and about 40 reboots later, I found a crude workaround. Basically, first Windows boot after driver re-install gets me to the login prompt successfully with all disks connected and everything works perfectly from there (I can see existing RAID10s and the new disks, the HPT Web RAID Management even shows SMART data for all the disks via expander, which I thought I would have problems with, it's all perfect). Second boot and onwards however, it hangs again when it tries to load the RR2680 driver.
So, my current boot sequence for Windows is:
1. Disconnect all the disks (remove the trays or disconnect the SFF-8087 between raid card and expander)
2. Boot into Windows and uninstall the raid card (including physical removal of the "c:\windows\system32\drivers\rr2680.sys" file)
3. Shut down, re-connect all the disks, boot again (still boots at that point since rr2680 driver is missing)
4. Install the driver for what is seen as "Unknown SAS Card" at that point by Windows, reboot with disks still connected
5. Windows boots fine, all the disks/RAIDs visible, normal operation
If I rebooted it just once more after step 5, it would hang at rr2680.sys driver load and wouldn't boot the second time, it seems only the very first boot after driver re-install works.
Has anyone had similar experiences with Windows & RR cards & expanders? I've put a support ticket with Highpoint, but my hopes are low when it comes to their support. I also have a feeling this might be a Windows issue, but not sure. Any ideas or further testing I could do? Could the RR2680 driver be doing something else/different on first boot after (re-)install compared with subsequent boots?
Does anyone know if it's possible to delay driver load until Windows loads fully and then load a specific driver, just like kernel modules in Linux?
Additional info:
- Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit, SP1 - using the latest 64-bit RR2680 driver from HPT (v1.5.10.1012)
- Ubuntu is running 2.6.38-13 kernel - using the latest RR2680 driver, compiled from source (v1.6.11.0316)
- BIOS v1.1 on the RR2680 card
Thanks,
--
Greg.
I've been successfully running Highpoint RR 2680 with 8 disks in two RAID10s for about a year and a half in a dual-boot PC running Windows 7 and Ubuntu 11.04.
It was time to upgrade capacity, so I ordered a Chenbro CK12804 expander since RR2680 only has 2 ports, and a bunch of additional disks. I was actually sent a CK22804 instead, all the better (believe only difference is CK22 is 6Gbps and CK12 is 3Gbps). I'll be limited to 3Gbps anyway by the raid card, but it'll help in the future.
The upgrade was completely successful under Linux (there was nothing to do really). The card & driver see all 15 disks now connected to the raid card through the Chenbro expander, including the existing RAID10s, so effectively I have 7 new uninitialized drives and everything's perfect. I can mount the filesystems on the existing RAID10s and read/write to them via the Chenbro expander, so that confirms all the new cabling between disks and expander and expander and raid card is fine.
Windows on the other hand hangs on boot since addition of the expander (at the Windows logo screen). I discovered that it hangs when it attempts to load the RR2680 driver (obviously). The LEDs on Chenbro give me the right outputs as the driver is being loaded, telling me that the raid card connected to the expander. After that, access LEDs on all disks come on for a brief moment (~10th of a second) and then it just hangs. I would normally expect the access LEDs on the disks to flash quickly for a good second or two as the RAID metadata is read off the disks by the raid card or whatever it does at that point (which is how it looks like when I boot Linux). Also, if I disconnect the disks, but keep Chenbro connected, Windows boots fine and loads the driver, it just hangs when 1 or more disks are connected via Chenbro (I tried literally with just 1 disk plugged, and different ones, hangs on all occasions).
Having wasted half Saturday and about 40 reboots later, I found a crude workaround. Basically, first Windows boot after driver re-install gets me to the login prompt successfully with all disks connected and everything works perfectly from there (I can see existing RAID10s and the new disks, the HPT Web RAID Management even shows SMART data for all the disks via expander, which I thought I would have problems with, it's all perfect). Second boot and onwards however, it hangs again when it tries to load the RR2680 driver.
So, my current boot sequence for Windows is:
1. Disconnect all the disks (remove the trays or disconnect the SFF-8087 between raid card and expander)
2. Boot into Windows and uninstall the raid card (including physical removal of the "c:\windows\system32\drivers\rr2680.sys" file)
3. Shut down, re-connect all the disks, boot again (still boots at that point since rr2680 driver is missing)
4. Install the driver for what is seen as "Unknown SAS Card" at that point by Windows, reboot with disks still connected
5. Windows boots fine, all the disks/RAIDs visible, normal operation
If I rebooted it just once more after step 5, it would hang at rr2680.sys driver load and wouldn't boot the second time, it seems only the very first boot after driver re-install works.
Has anyone had similar experiences with Windows & RR cards & expanders? I've put a support ticket with Highpoint, but my hopes are low when it comes to their support. I also have a feeling this might be a Windows issue, but not sure. Any ideas or further testing I could do? Could the RR2680 driver be doing something else/different on first boot after (re-)install compared with subsequent boots?
Does anyone know if it's possible to delay driver load until Windows loads fully and then load a specific driver, just like kernel modules in Linux?
Additional info:
- Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit, SP1 - using the latest 64-bit RR2680 driver from HPT (v1.5.10.1012)
- Ubuntu is running 2.6.38-13 kernel - using the latest RR2680 driver, compiled from source (v1.6.11.0316)
- BIOS v1.1 on the RR2680 card
Thanks,
--
Greg.