RAID1 rebuild time question

I have a RAID1 with a Silicon Image SATA controller sil3114.

Often, my PC bluescreens (that caused data corruption on my previous HD so I
switched to RAID1).
The SATARAID utility reports in such cases always an "event" (exceeding
S.M.A.R.T status) and starts rebuilding.
Incidentally, the same happens when copying a few hundred thousand files,
after about half an hour there seems to be so much overheating that the
S.M.A.R.T status is exceeded.

Anyway. The rebuild rate has been set to "fastest" but it still takes 24
hours (or more!) to rebuild the mirror.
Is that normal?

And, more importantly, what happens when there is another crash that
corrupts the *other* HDD during the rebuilding process?
(This has already happened several times..)

Some more questions: Can I add more disks to that card (which has 4 SATA
connectors). Doesn't seem so.

And this rebuilding, why is always the entire HD rebuilt and not the sector
that is deemed corrupted?
Is rebuilding so slow to avoid overheating or taking away to many system
resources?
Can the rebuilding be sped up by a registry hack or something?

Could it be that mismatching RAM timing ratings are responsible for my many
bluescreens that cause HD corruption?

(Newly installed WinXP SP2, virus free machine).

TIA,
Frank

On Thu, 10 Mar 2005 18:07:49 +0100, "Frank de Groot"
wrote:

I have a RAID1 with a Silicon Image SATA controller sil3114.

Often, my PC bluescreens (that caused data corruption on my previous HD so I
switched to RAID1).
The SATARAID utility reports in such cases always an "event" (exceeding
S.M.A.R.T status) and starts rebuilding.
Incidentally, the same happens when copying a few hundred thousand files,
after about half an hour there seems to be so much overheating that the
S.M.A.R.T status is exceeded.

Anyway. The rebuild rate has been set to "fastest" but it still takes 24
hours (or more!) to rebuild the mirror.
Is that normal?

And, more importantly, what happens when there is another crash that
corrupts the *other* HDD during the rebuilding process?
(This has already happened several times..)

Some more questions: Can I add more disks to that card (which has 4 SATA
connectors). Doesn't seem so.

And this rebuilding, why is always the entire HD rebuilt and not the sector
that is deemed corrupted?
Is rebuilding so slow to avoid overheating or taking away to many system
resources?
Can the rebuilding be sped up by a registry hack or something?

Could it be that mismatching RAM timing ratings are responsible for my many
bluescreens that cause HD corruption?

(Newly installed WinXP SP2, virus free machine).

TIA,
Frank


The event means your disk is is dying, perhaps it is out of spare
sectors for reallocation. Replace the disk.

"David A.Lethe" wrote in message
...

The event means your disk is is dying, perhaps it is out of spare
sectors for reallocation. Replace the disk.

I forgot to mention that all disks are brand new, almost the same serial #s
and verified OK.
When it happened the first time I traded the disk for another new one. Same
problem.

I have 5 new disks, any combination of two in a RAID1 shows the same
problem.

The same problem occurs with any other disk, not in a RAID1, but that causes
the disk to be corrupted so much that finally I loose data. So I gather it's
the MB, as replacing the OS (2000 to XP) did not do the trick either.

Still I wonder why the rebuild times are so slow with SATARAID (or the
sil3114).

I have a RAID1 with a Silicon Image SATA controller sil3114.

Often, my PC bluescreens (that caused data corruption on my previous HD so I

Try using Windows software RAID instead. Maybe this is a bug in the
controller's driver.

--
Maxim Shatskih, Windows DDK MVP
StorageCraft Corporation

http://www.storagecraft.com

Often, my PC bluescreens (that caused data corruption on my previous HD
so I

Try using Windows software RAID instead. Maybe this is a bug in the
controller's driver.

Nope.
It also happens on ordinary IDE HD's.
And it also happens on a different MOBO with the same RAM.
And it also happens with a different OS.

"Frank de Groot" wrote in message
...

FYI, I now kno what it is.
One of my disks just DIED on me (meaning Windows could not do a delayed
write any more and the disk was gone from the Admin tools).

Then an AV with a message from MS saying that a certaain HP driver needed
updating urgently or I could get a damaged system.
I went to the HP site and there they said that the buggy driver could
irrepairably damage the bootsector, lead to loss of files making it
inevitable that the OS needed to be reinstalled etc. Some nice mess..

The craziest part is that the name of the app that wreaks all this havoc
(and has been doing for the past 2 year apparently, since I bought a
scanner) is called: "Memories to CD" or something
Damage suffered: many thousands of USD and many weeks of delays and many
lost file over the years.
I wish people wouldn't force-install that crap with scanners and printers
nowadays.

On Thu, 10 Mar 2005 18:07:49 +0100, "Frank de Groot"
wrote:

I have a RAID1 with a Silicon Image SATA controller sil3114.

Often, my PC bluescreens (that caused data corruption on my previous HD so I
switched to RAID1).
The SATARAID utility reports in such cases always an "event" (exceeding
S.M.A.R.T status) and starts rebuilding.
Incidentally, the same happens when copying a few hundred thousand files,
after about half an hour there seems to be so much overheating that the
S.M.A.R.T status is exceeded.

First off, mirroring will not protect against write corruption.
Whatever it writes to one it writes to the other. And a blusescreen
would likely be a write corruption since most of the OS runs out of
memory bypassing reads. Unless you get a BSOD on boot or shortly
after login. Then maybe...


Anyway. The rebuild rate has been set to "fastest" but it still takes 24
hours (or more!) to rebuild the mirror.
Is that normal?

You don't mention the size of the drives but in most cases yes. FC
drives can take less but most sata drives are 24 hours, some as long
as 36.


And, more importantly, what happens when there is another crash that
corrupts the *other* HDD during the rebuilding process?
(This has already happened several times..)

Some more questions: Can I add more disks to that card (which has 4 SATA
connectors). Doesn't seem so.

If you only have 2 drives on there now then you can add 2 more.
Hopefully "connectors" really means channels. If not you're only
going to halve your speed per drive since a channel can only handle so
much througput.


And this rebuilding, why is always the entire HD rebuilt and not the sector
that is deemed corrupted?
Is rebuilding so slow to avoid overheating or taking away to many system
resources?
Can the rebuilding be sped up by a registry hack or something?

There is what's called "sick disk recovery" where valid data on a
drive will be copied off to the spare, but I highly doubt your card
has that.
Rebuilding a mirror can seriously impact performance on a 2 drive
system. It may be purposeful, it may just be the limit of the drive.
Hardware raid rebuilds by blocks, not files. So if you only have 24gb
of data on the drive it's not rebuilding 24gb, it's rebuilding all
120/260/430gb (whatever) worth of blocks on the drive.


Could it be that mismatching RAM timing ratings are responsible for my many
bluescreens that cause HD corruption?

I would not think timing mismatch would be an issue, more likely bad
segments of memory if you suspect memory for some reason. It could
also be the card. Wouldn't be the first time a raid controller went
to crap slowly.

~F

First off, mirroring will not protect against write corruption.

I was afraid of that.
Thanks for your answer BTW.

You don't mention the size of the drives but in most cases yes. FC
drives can take less but most sata drives are 24 hours, some as long
as 36.

Indeed it takes up to 36 hours for 120 GB drives.

If you only have 2 drives on there now then you can add 2 more.
Hopefully "connectors" really means channels.

I meant to make a RAID12 that contains 3 drives + 1 hot spare instead of 2
drives + 1 hot spare.

There is what's called "sick disk recovery" where valid data on a
drive will be copied off to the spare, but I highly doubt your card
has that.

No, this card (Silicon Image) doesn't even speed up reading from a RAID1.
It's software-based.

I would not think timing mismatch would be an issue, more likely bad
segments of memory if you suspect memory for some reason.

Will do a thorought test, thanks.

It could
also be the card. Wouldn't be the first time a raid controller went
to crap slowly.

I am so serious about this ongoing issue that I bought two RAID controller
cards.
It's not the card, it happens on other drives as well, and other MOBO's as
well..
It is either a drriver, or the RAM.
In a previous post I mentioned an error message after a disk crash I got (I
got this a few times before and ignored it..)
The message + HP explanation at their site, in my words, amounted to: "There
is a Hewlett-Packard program on your system "Sweet Memories To Disk", that
can totally corrupt your harddisk so that you would have to wipe it clean
and re-install everything - please download this update". Well I have done
it now..

No kidding.

(C) Copyright 2005 Frank A. de Groot - All rights reserved.

Will do a thorought test, thanks.


I removed 2 of 3 DIMMS and now the disks run like a charm instead of
immediately reporting errors, even under a severe stresstest.
Looks like the cause was a faulty DIMM.

On Sat, 12 Mar 2005 12:48:49 +0100 in comp.arch.storage, "Frank de
Groot" wrote:

I removed 2 of 3 DIMMS and now the disks run like a charm instead of
immediately reporting errors, even under a severe stresstest.
Looks like the cause was a faulty DIMM.

May not be a faulty DIMM, the fault may be installing 3 DIMMs: most
systems nowadays will only run with 2 normal spec DIMMs, unless all
DIMMs are registered or tested: check your motherboard manufacturer's
web site for DIMM specs, and what specific brands and models are
allowed when you have more than 2 installed.

--
Thanks. Take care, Brian Inglis Calgary, Alberta, Canada

(Brian[dot]Inglis{at}SystematicSW[dot]ab[dot]ca)
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