XFS Syncraid almost destroyed my raid array.

[DanNeely]

My system bluescreened about an hour ago, and when I rebooted my raid card only reported 4/5 drives in my raid 3 array. The scary part is that instead of entering failsafe mode, it reported the 4 drives as not being part of an array, and started a 30s countdown towards building them as a raid0 array.

Reseating the ribbon cable in the card resurected the array, but I'm one reboot and drive glitch away from loosing all my data. Short of disabling automatic rebooting after a power outage in the bios, is there anything I can do to disasterproof my system?

 

[Vertigo Acid]

Backups

 

[unhappy_mage]

XFX, not XFS Had me worried for a while there.

I have no idea how to rectify this. Talk to XFX tech support. And don't buy another XFX card.

 

[DanNeely]

Re backups. I have some, my slacksidaisical attitude towards making them is a big chunk of why I spent the $300ish over a raid0/loose drive setup.

My 1st response from thier tech was "I'm not sure what's causing that, try flashing the firmware". Unfortunately I need to goto the chip maker's website (netcell.com) which is currently down.

 

[undef]

I'm rather concerned that Netcell will not be coming back up. I use the Syncraid card(s) as well, and have noticed that the forums went down and stayed down several weeks ago, and now the main site is down. Any word on whether Netcell is gone for good?

 

[DanNeely]

Nothing concrete. I got this from XFX today.

[MICHAELC - 06/07/2006] Hi Dan; I`m sorry that our support is somewhat limited on this product, and since Netcell support is nonexistent at this time, we will have to consult with engineers overseas and their extended knowledgebase on Netcell technology. Regards, Michael

It seems they're not expecting a prompt recovery, but beyond that I don't know.

 

[DanNeely]

I got a status update on netcell. Seems like they're not dead yet, but apparently not particularly healthy either.

[ROBERT - 06/12/2006] Hello Dan. Thanks for your message. Netcell is undergoing some changes but is still active in their business. Unfortunately, inorder to get firmware/software updates we have to contact Netcell themselves or our engineers for them. Once we get the updates we will send them off to you. Thank you. Best regards, Robert.

 

[drizzt81]

thanks for keeping this updated.

 

[oscarmayer]

any more news on this? I have a card as well and I woudl liek to see a resoltuion to the fact everytime i power cycle not jsut reboot my pc it comes back with a bad drive then rebuild ti and it's fine. as long as i reboot it's ok. but if I power off, forget it, and it's not always the same driver either. it appears to be a bug inthe coding someplace, but we need netcell to resolve this.

 

[DanNeely]

No. Nothing from XFX since my last post, and the netcell page is still down. When I here back from them I'll make annother update.

 

[dandragonrage]

The question is will it let you change it back to RAID-5 if it converts it to RAID-0 and you replace the drive?

 

[DanNeely]

If it creates a raid0 I'd expect the raid5's data to be permanantly dead, but that's an experiment I hope to never do.

 

[dandragonrage]

Highly unlikely. It'll take your parity data and turn it into the actual data (it could run without doing this, but it will have to calculate that data on the fly every time you access it). If you get a new drive in there, it will probably let you convert it back to RAID-5 with no issue.

 

[DanNeely]

It's been almost a year since i set my raid up, but IIRC the firmware would autmatically partition the array as well if not stopped. I'd think that writing a new partition table would permanantly fubar the existing one, and since I've got multiple partitions simply rewriting a default 5drive one wouldn't do me any good.

 

[DanNeely]

XFX reports no progress with getting anything from netcell.