Ghost/Clone Program to rebuild RAID 1 array on a SAS6IR Controller

Can anyone suggest a ghost/clone program I can use to rebuild a RAID 1 array on a SAS6IR controller. I also would like to increase the size of the C:/ drive. The server is a Dell PowerEdge T105 running windows 2008 R2.

 "Cloning isn't a supported process with Dell, as it can cause issues and instability in the array"
I do not understand Dell's stance on cloning. Unless and array already has issues such as a double fault, puncture, major chkdsk errors cloning is a practical/safe means of porting an array over to a new array, with or without resizing, or porting over to a different array type.
The rebuild from scratch/restore method, on a complicated server, is time consuming, tedious, expensive, and pressure involved.  Have servers with multiple resident programs, multiple SQL instance etc etc which manually could take over 30 hours to rebuild; rather expensive, especially if for some reason it must be accomplished during working hours. In my experience, I have ported smaller arrays to larger array at least 40 times and never had any issues. Have cloned between different controllers, the on board disk interface(motherboard) and Percs, between different arrays...always works.
Used different cloning softwares, primarily Acronis. Granted if you use a little known cloning software and or do not test your array for errors previous to cloning you could have issues. Go from scratch/restore on a complicated server and you will have issues, especially if your not the one who built the server originally.

Similar Messages

  • Is It Possible to Clone RAID Array in a Safe and Easy Way?

    Why do computer users need to clone RAID array, especially Windows Server users need to do RAID cloning? Generally speaking, they need to clone RAID array regularly in order to upgrade disk or migrate data from small disk to a larger one. A typical
    example is that when the partitions on the hardware RAID runs out of space, you may prefer to rebuild the hardware RAID with larger hard disks. Then, you need to backup the data to another place, rebuild the hardware RAID and restore data again.
    What a time-consuming task!
    Is it possible to clone RAID array in a safe and easy way? The answer is yes and this article will introduce a RAID cloning software.

    Hi jiangchunli,
    Were you looking to post this question in some other forum? This looks like related to RAID and Disk upgrades.
    This forum is meant for
    http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/services/recovery-manager/
    Please let us know if this is indeed Hyper-V Recovery Manager related so we can help better.
    Thanks
    Praveen
    Praveen/ www.PraveenKumar.in

  • RAID arrays

    Hi,
    I'm very ignorant about RAID, at least in a lot of ways. Please bear with me for the long following quote.
    "The benefit that hardware RAID can offer is two-fold: With hardware RAID systems, your Mac is dumping the data off to the RAID system itself without having to mess with actually writing it to the platters. This can make a noticeable difference when doing CPU and I/O intensive chores like DV editing, working with large publishing files, or graphic design work using really large files."
    I'd like to try this. Would either of the following products allow me to set this up for my Mac?
    http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Sonnet%20Technology/TSATAIIE4I/
    http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Highpoint%20Technologies/RRAID2310/
    And can one boot up from an array for better performance?
    Thanks

    Let me address your questions:
    From the link on the Velociraptor I read this, "Plus, we figured a power user may want dual Velociraptors (RAID 0) to squeeze out even more speed and increase the boot drive total capacity to 600GB. So we included results for "striped" dual drive sets.
    Just how did they accomplish that? Or have I asked that already?
    Most of the time, a stripped RAID for booting is not helpful in every setup, for every application or person. Have your system on drive A or firewire, and clone it to the RAID after you create it, and the clone is fine.
    The "ignore ownership" (to me) is a bug. CCC or SuperDuper should insure ownership is enabled before starting the copy operation. Most attempts that fail, fail because "ownership" box in Volume Get Info was "on."
    But... if you haven't been using RAID much in the past, I would forgo for now, and with a couple VRs there are other ways to get the most out of two or three.
    Having a "dedicated" boot drive of just the operating system and applications is often enough, and keep all data and media on another drive(s).
    I keep the "home account" on 2nd drive or stripped RAID, so I have 3 drives with boot and dual-drive stripped home.
    Raptors have been great for replacing SCSI and for scratch arrays.
    They did not put their applications on RAID. I've found that it never helped to move any applications off the boot drive. Boot drive should be your fastest drive.
    CS3 really needs a dedicated scratch drive so that it doesn't use the boot drive for scratch when working with large files. When you get to 2GB files, you need both a stripped scratch array of 2-4 drives, also dual stripe for boot, and 3rd array for media or saving files. Consider how long you have to wait to save a 2GB file over and over during the day. It adds up.
    A dedicated boot drive of any type only needs to be backed up before installing updates or applications or patches. So most of the time, it stays almost the same and weekly backup is more than enough, while data may need to be backed up multiple times a day.
    One note: disable Spotlight on scratch editing volumes, it causes problems to CS3 and other programs.
    Make a schematic or diagram is what I do, on paper or in my mind, or I sit here with dozens of drives and shuffle files and drives around and move the system and data to where I think I want it and will make sense. Like this week rearranged everything now that I bought 4 new drives and want to run Windows Vista in VMware.

  • Windows Vista + nVidia i680 MB + RAID5 + iTunes 7.3.2 = RAID array trouble

    Dunno if any of you can help out with this but I'm at witt's end over this issue.
    I have a Windows Vista box running an Abit In9-32MAX motherboard (nVidia i680 chipset), four drives in a RAID 5 array and using iTunes 7.3.2
    Drivers for the motherboard are the most recent ones from the nVidia site. BIOS for motherboard is also current.
    Practically ANY time I import any audio or video file over 50 MB into iTunes the entire RAID array will degrade. I'm also having issues transcoding video into Quicktime using Videora which seems to be related to this issue. The video simply refuses to play.
    For what it's worth the video/audio content is legit. I own the DVD's that I'm transcoding so I can watch them when I travel.
    Any thoughts, ideas, suggestions, etc appreciated. I'd love to go a whole week without iTunes/Quicktime forcing me to rebuild the RAID array.

    Well, whatever Itunes/quicktime does, it's definitely causing some sort of RAID compatibility. I've had this problem since I got my new rig a month ago. Nvidia 680i SLI board with a RAID 1, and I have it working fine (I've done 3 system restores now) and then I install itunes, and kablooie, there goes the RAID. I can also tell you that even if you disable the mediashield program (NVRAID.exe), it will still happen (this was my last experiment in trying to make it work) and the raid will show up degraded in the BIOS.
    Basically, Apple and Nvidia need to exchange a freaking phone call and try and figure out what is causing it to go bad. from reading around, it's not just apple (though they are the biggest culprit). I've seen people mention bittorrent and some other program whose name escapes me at the moment cause this as well (digital imaging program I think).

  • Image Software on nVidia RAID arrays

    Has anyone been able to get a disk imaging program to work with the nVidia RAID array?  I have tried Acronis True Image, Norton Ghost 9.0 and the old Drive Image. I have been unable get the rescue/recovery disks to recognize the RAID Array. With Acronis, it appears that they don't have the Linux drivers for the RAID array.  Ghost 9.0 is supposed to support RAID arrays, but when I try to load the drivers, I get a message that it can't find nvraid.sys, despite the fact that I supply that file on the floppy disk. I spent 1.5 hours on the phone with Symantec Technical Support and their only answer was that I would receive a phone call from a supervisor in 3 days.  
    I can get Norton Ghost to work from within windows, but in order to restore an image of my C: drive I need to gain access to the RAID array from the recovery disk.

    I have sort of got it to work with ghost9 .
    I have written a plug-in for nvraid/nvide for the bartWinPE cd made with PEBuilder 3032.
    V2I Images can then be browsed with imagebrowser and files/catalogs be restored
    to arrays partitions .
    The thing that does not yet work properly is the V2I protector executable cause the bart plug-in for .Net gives problems .(not sorted out this yet)
    The BartWinPE cd is also of course equipped with ghost9 plugin .
    So basicly the PC is booted with bootable Windows PE cd (like the ghost9 CD) ,
    windows runs from cd&ram . And all the nvraid arrays is visible .Restoration made
    with V2I image browser .
    The plug-in ( INF file ) :
    Code: [Select]
    ; PE Builder v3 plug-in INF file
    ; NVIDIA RAID (Windows XP)
    ; Created by Syar2003
    [Version]
    Signature= "$Windows NT$"
    [PEBuilder]
    Name="DSK_NvRaid"
    Enable=1
    [SourceDisksFiles]
    nvraid.sys=4,,1
    nvatabus.sys=4,,1
    [SetValue]
    "txtsetup.sif","SourceDisksFiles","nvraid.sys", "1,,,,,,_x,4,1,0,0"
    "txtsetup.sif","SourceDisksFiles","NvAtaBus.sys", "1,,,,,,_x,4,1,0,0"
    "txtsetup.sif","SCSI.Load","nvatabus", "nvatabus.sys,4"
    "txtsetup.sif","SCSI.Load","nvraid", "nvraid.sys,4"
    "txtsetup.sif","SCSI","nvatabus", """NVIDIA NForce Storage Controller"""
    "txtsetup.sif","SCSI","nvraid", """NVIDIA RAID CLASS DRIVER"""
    "txtsetup.sif","HardwareIdsDatabase","PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_008E", """nvatabus"""
    "txtsetup.sif","HardwareIdsDatabase","PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0085", """nvatabus"""
    "txtsetup.sif","HardwareIdsDatabase","PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_00D5", """nvatabus"""
    "txtsetup.sif","HardwareIdsDatabase","PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_00EE", """nvatabus"""
    "txtsetup.sif","HardwareIdsDatabase","PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_00E3", """nvatabus"""
    "txtsetup.sif","HardwareIdsDatabase","PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_00E5", """nvatabus"""
    "txtsetup.sif","HardwareIdsDatabase","*_NVRAIDBUS", """nvraid"""
    "txtsetup.sif","HardwareIdsDatabase","GenNvRaidDisk", """nvraid"""
    If the BartWinPE cd is equipped with ghost8 you should be able to restore
    full disks/partitions with the *.gho extension .
    But then the images must be buildt with ghost8 (from the BartWinPE cd first).
    Though i have not had the time to test that yet .
    Links:
    Plug-in repository
    http://www.reatogo.de/BartPE/BartPE_plugins/repository.htm
    PeBuilder
    http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

  • WinXP-64 bit corrupts existing RAID array

    I've got an MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum motherboard running Win XP Pro SP2 on two 36 gig SATA Raptors.  Everything was working fine, but I wanted to try the 64 bit version of XP.  Grabbed an old 80 gig PATA drive and threw that in the case.  Unplugged the SATA drives so as not to risk messing with the existing working OS.  Installed the latest 1218 x64 beta and it worked well.
      The problem was that when I shut down and reconnected my old RAID array, windows wouldn't boot from it.  I lost everything and had to rebuild Windows from scratch.  So now I know to never unplug the SATA drives   
      Rebuilt WinXP on the RAID array and then tried rebooting with the PATA drive with the 64 bit OS.  Came up with the "drive needs checking" screen, and proceeds to "fix" the RAID array while ignoring my frantic pounding on the Logitech USB keyboard to stop.  Rebooted and yes, the new install was nuked.  Okay, since it's gone anyway, reboot to the 64 bit OS and make sure it's got the 64 bit RAID drivers installed.
      Reinstall WinXP on the RAID array, reboot to the 64 bit OS on the other drive and the same old scandisk comes and nukes it AGAIN!
      So now the PATA drive is sitting on the shelf again, unless someone here can suggest what is causing this problem.
    System Specs
    Athlon64 3500
    gig of PQI 3200 at 2-2-2-5 2.6
    2x36 gig Raptors on ports 3-4
    Plextor PX-716a DVD+_RW
    Visiontek X800 Pro.

    The first time you re-installed Win 32 on the raid that was a bit drastic. A repair ought to have done the job.
    The problem was probably that you disconnected the array but that's where the boot.ini was and that file needed to be modified to add the path to the Win64 install.
    Since you took out the array the Win64 install created a new boot.ini on the PATA drive. Even when you tell BIOS to boot off the array, Windows has a bad habit of looking at the IDE channels & using the boot.ini if it finds one there - but the file it found didn't point to the array of course.
    So basically if you already have Win32 on the array I would leave that array connected normally when installing Win64 on the PATA drive and all should be well.
    I've installed Win64 on the same array as my Win32 install and they co-exist happily. I reckon that's the most efficient way to do it. The main thing is to make separate partitions for Win32, Win64 and data files when you install Win32 in the first place. The two OSs can share the same data files, incuding stuff like email.

  • Problem Installing 817 on Windows 2000 with RAID Array

    I am having a problem installing Oracle under windows 2000 which has 2 x 60 GB discs configured in RAID array. When I run the setup program the cursor goes busy for about 10 seconds and returns back to normal and nothing happens !. No errors nothing.
    However when I run the Object Manager in the ods_preinstall directory it starts but in the log file I get the following error message:-
    02/14/02 09:46:18 : (892) : Error in IO Control call for disk PhysicalDrive0 (Error 21)
    02/14/02 09:46:19 : (892) : The count = 28
    02/14/02 09:46:19 : (892) : The signature is 0x443aa035
    02/14/02 09:46:19 : (892) : Error: First Partition of the disk must be an extended disk
    02/14/02 09:46:19 : (892) : Found the partition: 7
    Any idea whats happening....? Has anyone seen this before. Do I need to do something special in teh RAID..?
    TIA
    Martin

    Here are some possible solutions:
    1. The installation notes state that you must be logged on as Administrator to be able to install 9i. Are you logged on as the Administrator? Being logged on as user01 with Administrator priviledges isn't the same as Administrator.
    2. Is the disk full? If I remember my installation correctly, I needed 3 times the size of the files. The documentation will tell you how much space you need.
    Hope these two questions help
    Regards,
    Michael

  • Raid array being seen as 2 individual drives

    Hi. Here is the issue as posted in other places. Still searching for the answer to this one.
    Specs:
    K7n2 delta2 platinum with b50 bios
    2x1gb crucial pc3200 2.5cas ram
    AMD Barton 2500
    2 x 160gb 7200rpm 8mb cache SATA Samsung Hdd's
    Thermaltake 430w psu
    Gainward fx5700 ultra graphics
    OS's: original xp corp, slipstreamed xp corp sp2
    raid drivers: nvraid.sys v4.27, 5.10, 5.11 (also the needed nvatabus.sys with those)
    I am NOT overclocked.
    fsb 166
    1:1 ram/cpu
    no spread spectrum or other garbage
    ddr400 patch disabled
    PSU gives presumably stable reading (according to what I see), with amperage ratings above the required.
    checked and rechecked cables for bad ones
    ran mulitple scans on drives, all come up drives OK
    I HAVE installed into Raid 0 already, this is not an issue of hardware failure as far as I am concerned.
    So here is the scenario
    I have properly set up the array, using correct bios settings and the raid setup utility, for a raid 0 array of those 2 hdd's listed. When booting into xp, either version, I have used all 3 of the driver sets listed. I have been reinstalling to do some performance tests on different configurations.
    Anyway, for the last few nights I have been trying to get the windows setup to see the raid 0 array as one 300gb drive. It does not, no matter what I try. It sees them as 2 drives, each being 160gb (or thereabouts). These drives are matched, same firmware, same lot, so that should not be an issue.
    I have used numberous tools to delete the mbr on the drives, both in an array and as single drives. I have done the same as well as tried an install and formatted each drive individually, still the same effect when the raid array is recreated.
    Basically, I can find no good reason why the array is seen as individuals and not as an array. It is interesting to note, that even though xp setup sees the the array as 2 drives, I can complete the text based portion of setup. However, rebooting to start the GUI portion of setup, it will not boot. Obviously becuase the bios has the controller as the nvraid controller and it is supposed to be a raid 0 array, so I expected that.
    Short of rewriting the mbr, either by deleting it or by changing each drive by formatting/partitioning/installing an OS on them, I cannot think of how to fix this. I know the drives and xp cd's work because I have already installed with them.
    I understand what to do in the bios portion, and in the raid setup utility portion. I know that I can boot into windows as a single drive and use the nvraid tool to set it up, but that is not the way it should be, and that is not the way I am going to learn WHY this is happening.
    Roger that. First set in bios enable raid (in this bios I have to enable IDE array, then choose which controller to actually enable raid on, which happens to have been SATA 1 & 2).
    Second, upon reboot, I use the F10 key to enter raid utility. Then, set to striping, set stripe size (which was one of the things I am testing), and add the drives to the array. Next step is to create it. It asks to clear disc data, and it is done.
    Have deleted that array as well as just cleared it. Have deleted it and reboot and rebuild it. Have deleted it, reboot, change bios back to non-raid, reboot. Reboot. Change bios back to raid enabled. Reboot. Rebuild array in raid utility, reboot. Run setup, only see 2 hdd's, not one array.
    Umm, yep, that is about it.
    More to the story now.
    From some other posts I tried this.
    1. destroy array. reboot. disable raid in bios. reboot. verify sata's visible as singles in bios.
    2. power down. pull plugs on sata's. reboot. no drives visible.
    3. pull power. jumper clear cmos. wait 60 seconds. re-pin jumper. power up.
    4. verify no drives. verify default bios settings. all is good
    5. plug drives in. reboot. seen as singles. erase mbr on both drives. reboot
    6. enable raid in bios, and choose sata 1 & 2 as "enabled". reboot.
    7. use F10 key to setup raid. Here is the interesting part. Even though I deleted the array prior to all of this, and removed the drives to force an ESCD update, and cleard the cmos with the board jumper, and then before raid was enabled, cleared the mbr on the drives, when I started the raid utility, the array was already set up. That is the problem, whatever that is. I have read snippets where it is claimed that this chip or bios or whatever stores some kind of a table on this stuff, but this is a bit out of hand.
    That combination, IMO, should have cleared anything out. But, the saga continues.
    Thanks for you help BWM
    [Edit] BTW, I have finally found a utility that will see a raid array and allow me to clear the arrays mbr. It is called SuperFdisk and is at ptdd.com. So far the only one that see's the 2 drives as 1.
    Yeppers.
    Started with v5.10 which came on a floppy with the mobo. Told setup to use both, nvatabus.sys and nvraid.sys. Even switched which one of the 2 I picked first, just to see.
    Same thing with v4.27 and v5.11. Also tried it with just the nvraid.sys and just the nvatabus.sys (which obviously does squat for raid, lol)
    Trying some new things now. Post in a little bit.
    I am officially at 'Wit's End'.
    Here is what I have tried now.
    1.pull drive cables. pull power. jumper clear cmos. wait. power up. no drives
    2.plug sata 1 in. boot. drive detected.
    3.boot to command.com, run MHDD, which is a nice russian utility similar to Spinrite. Used this to clear the mbr at hardware level, and do a complete erase.
    4. reboot to command.com. run superfdisk. erase mbr.
    5. pull plug on sata 1, and plug in sata 2 with sata 1 cable. repeat the erasure steps listed above.
    6. pull plug on sata 2, no sata plugged in. reboot
    7. change bios to raid enable on sata 1 & 2. power down
    8. plug in sata 1 & 2. power up.
    9. inspect raid utility. no listing of any arrays. reboot
    10. in raid utility, build array. did NOT clear discs. reboot
    11. attempt install. single drives found again (used both drivers).reboot
    12. in raid utility, optioned to CLEAR discs (funny, rebuild option is never valid).reboot
    13. attempt install, both drivers, still seen as 2 individuals.
    Things to note. When creating an array when presumably there are none, it assigns the raid array an ID of 2. Upon reboot, the ID is now 1. Don't know what difference that makes.
    Also, tried the install listed above with APIC functionality both off and on. Also, when on, set MPS to both 1.1 and 1.4. In addition to this, each variant I tried manual HAL layers of, in this order, ACPI (the one that actually spells ACPI out), ACPI Uniprocessor, MPS Uniprocessor, and let it choose it for me.
    So, here I sit in a barca-lounger at 'Wit's End', with a warm cup of java and a dinner mint.

    Here is the final product on the floppy disk that I used to  successfully install a stable raid 0 on the MSI K7N2 Delta 2 Ultra 400  Platinum ms-6570e motherboard.
    On root of floppy, from driverset 6.70. (after much testing, I used  driver pack 5.10 for my nic and smbus. I used the realtek sound  drivers off the cd for audio. I have used every driver pack I could  find, and while some did offer better I/O or read/write latency, this  set in general provided the most stable environment. The only drivers  I used were these floppy drivers for SATA, the nic and smbus just  mentioned, the sound just mentioned, and updating the nvide drivers to  mside drivers)
    <from sataraid directory>
    disk1
    idecoi.dll
    nvatabus.sys
    nvraid.cat
    nvraid.inf
    nvraid.sys
    nvraidco.dll
    <from legacy directory>
    nvata.cat
    nvatabus.inf
    I used the txtsetup.oem from the sataraid directory, but edited this:
    [Files.scsi.RAIDCLASS]
    driver  = d1,nvraid.sys,RAIDCLASS
    inf     = d1,nvraid.inf
    dll     = d1,nvraidco.dll
    catalog = d1,nvraid.cat
    [Files.scsi.BUSDRV]
    driver = d1,nvatabus.sys,BUSDRV
    inf    = d1, nvraid.inf
    dll    = d1,idecoi.dll
    catalog = d1, nvraid.cat
    To this:
    [Files.scsi.RAIDCLASS]
    driver  = d1,nvraid.sys,RAIDCLASS
    inf     = d1,nvraid.inf
    dll     = d1,nvraidco.dll
    catalog = d1,nvata.cat
    [Files.scsi.BUSDRV]
    driver = d1,nvatabus.sys,BUSDRV
    inf    = d1, nvatabus.inf
    dll    = d1,idecoi.dll
    catalog = d1, nvata.cat
    Now, it is important to note that I installed or attempted to install  at least 50 times. Bare minimum. I noticed when I use this custom  driver disc that in the GUI portion of setup, XP asks me for files  from the disc. I tried lot's of different things to alleviate this,  and denied some of them.
    One thing that really bugged me was that the bios would see my #2  optical, slave on secondary IDE channel. A dvd/rw drive. And I could  even start the setup from it. But, once I got about 3/4 through copy  file stage on text setup portion, I would hang. Becuase the drive was  no longer accessible. Booting from the master would get me to the  desktop, but the slave optical was nowhere to be found. Updating the  ATA/IDE controller to the ms ide drivers would get it visible, but I  kept having issues with stability after I did that.
    The most stable method I found was to use my above listing of driver  files for the floppy, and when in GUI mode setup asks about NVCOI.DLL,  I skipped it, ignored it, and did not let setup install it. That  actually got me to the desktop, with access to the slave optical as a  "removable drive". It even knew what the hardware was. It just could  not access it. On a reboot however, back to not seeing it. This method  however did allow me to update the nvide driver with the mside driver  with no stability issues. So, for me it was a raving success.
    Here are some links regarding the SATA RAID driver workaround:
    http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:jHbX5bNfGx4J:www.msfn.org/board/lofiversion/index.php/t51140.html+nforce2+nvraid.sys+ms+ide&hl=en&client=opera
    http://www.aoaforums.com/frontpage/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=292&Itemid
    http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:J9UhG2Kd8W4J:www.short-media.com/forum/showthread.php%3Ft%3D32751+xp+2+sata+raid+0+seen+as+individual&hl=en&client=opera
    Early on one problem I noticed was that in text setup mode of xp  installation, there were long pauses that I have never seen before. I  noticed that with both ide and sata installs. Also I noticed that when  booting there was a really long pause when the xp logo is first seen  in a sort of dim state till when it became bright and vivid.
    Come to find out that this is a more or less typical scenario. Most  instances that I read about were all pointing to the nvide driver. So,  I found if I just updated the PATA controller to the standard ms ide  driver, that went away and the whole system ran better.
    It took awhile to figure out that if you install a driver with the  nForce2 chip, you had to uninstall it or you will have issues. Herein  was the main problem I encountered with the SATA RAID installs. The  nvatabus.sys driver was required for an SATA RAID install. Omitting  the ata driver was impossible. And for awhile I had no success  updating the ms ide driver once I was to the desktop without major  instability. Here are some links regarding the drivers for this  chipset:
    http://www.nforcershq.com/forum/latest-drivers-for-nforce-3-vt60240.html
    In my browsing I came across some pretty interesting articles  regarding ACPI. One thing I started playing with was the different HAL  layers that xp installs on it's own, vs. me picking one manually (F5  key). I must have started the setup at least 50 times to figure out  this: that this particular board does not give me the bios settings to  install xp with anything but the ACPI Uniprocessor Hal. For instance,  the MPS Uniprocessor HAL is much more responsive, but it lacks the  IRQ's needed for setup to see the raid array. I booted to each one,  some locking the system up, some booting OK. The one I found the best  performance with early on was the one that spells out ACPI, not just  initialized. (sorry, I don't want to look it up).
    I seemed to be getting closer, but I could not find the needed bios  settings to properly manage my ACPI, and since I was trying for RAID,  I could not use the one that did work. Here is a link for that kind of  stuff.
    http://www.fceduc.umu.se/~jesruv98/info/acpi/acpi.html
    Another thing that I did not like was being forced to use the dynamic  overclocking feature of this board. I have a 333mhz barton core, and I  have ddr400 ram. In optimized (fool proof) mode in bios, I was running  asynchronous. I did not want that. So I set it down to run at 166mhz,  with very slow and conservative settings on everything. Unfortunately,  if I did this "manual" method, I was forced to use the dynamic  overclocking. I thought I had that figured out. So I set everything to  "optimized". But, as it turns out, the system had terrible stability  without the dynamic overclocking set to at least Private. What this  meant is that I could not rule out that my stability issues  (corruptions and hangs and bsod) were from being overclocked even a  tiny bit or not. And as if that were not enough, this bios has a  special set of settings you must unlock to see. And one of those is  paramount in achieving a stable system. It is called the DDR400 patch,  and it is enabled by default. So, by pressing SHIFT+f2 AND CTRL+F3,  these settings are now available. Like I said, I had to disable that  DDR400 patch setting.
    I also found out from the first day that my board shipped with the  latest bios. I flashed the 2 prior versions with no success in more  stability. After about 6 weeks of getting whipped on by this board, I  found mention of some modded bios's for this board. I have used modded  bios's in the past, some worked wonders, others required some serious  effort to recover from. What I found out about this board is that  there are 2 players who make the modded bios's. Here is the first  index I found from a german website. This one actually is for the  older B4 version only for the Platinum.
    http://storage-raid-forum.de/viewtopic.php?t=2824
    And here is an english forum for pretty much the same thing
    http://www.nforcershq.com/forum/bios-mods-for-k7n-and-k8-boards-vt55014.html
    These links have a bit more information, and I decided to go with  these. I tried versions b61,b62 and b71. I found b71 to work the best  for me. Mind you I am not into overclocking or what-have-you. Just a  rig that performs as well as it was advertised to do. Try these out  for the bios information:
    http://forums.pcper.com/showthread.php?t=385480
    https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=84715.0B62
    Here is a page that had a bunch of misc stuff I found interesting:
    http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:QkvLeKcbwjQJ:www.amdzone.com/modules.php%3Fop%3Dmodload%26name%3DPNphpBB2%26file%3Dviewtopic%26p%3D75383+nforce2+ultra+nvraid+driver+freeze&hl=en&client=opera
    In the end, I have, I think, conquered this board. My findings can be  summed up as follows, all in my opion only I guess.
    1. There are some ACPI/APIC issues with this board or this chipset. I  believe it also included drivers and some can be attributed to XP.
    2. There are some major bios issues with this board.
    3. There are some major driver issues concerning SATA/RAID. I am not  sure who get's the boob prize, nVidia or MSI.
    The only way I have found to get RAID 0 installed and stable is to  modify my bios (which is a modded beta version), modify my driver disk  for SATA/RAID, modify my install sequence for those drivers, modify my  drivers within windows after setup, use different drivers from  different driver packs for different pieces of hardware, and modify my  HAL layer after everything else is done, to achieve peak performance.
    If I had not spent soooo much time trying to get a stable install, I  would have built up an Unattended CD, which has some possibilities for  forcing non WHQL drivers. But, hey man, I am totally burn out on this  board. And all it was for is a spare LAN box for when I go to a  lanparty. Sheesh. Murphy's law.
    Oh, and I also found out, with my own eyes, that the Soyo KT600  Dragon+ that I dumped for this wonderful board, is way faster. Faster  read/writes, faster throughput on the nic, faster booting, much faster  installs of xp. As a matter of fact, I could get my KT600 to get a  consistent thruput on the network to my older KT266a board at 99%.  That is pretty fast. 2 of these Platinum boards, on a sweet switch  that is tweaked, will only go up to 91%, no matter how much I tweak  them. The gigabit connects via a crossover cable at about 38% of full  bore. This is tweaked stuff, but still. I listened to the hype. Dual  channel memory, giglan, etc etc.
    I hope this may help anyone else out there who is still fighting with  these issues.
    Out.
    sul

  • Quicktime 7.2 and Vista with RAID Arrays

    Has anybody been brave enough to install Quicktime 7.2 on their Vista computer which also has a RAID 0 or 1 array? Previous versions of Quicktime have crashed the RAID array necessitating a new computer the first time and a rebuild of the backup RAID driver the second time.
    I want to have iTunes and Quicktime on my Vista machine because I have an iPhone and it only syncs with iTunes but I am afraid to try it again. I updated my BIOS and the Intel RAID drivers with a Dell technician a few days ago so I have their "current" drivers but still am not sure this will "fix" the Quicktime crashing Vista RAID array issue.
    Any brave souls out there that have tried the latest version with Vista and a RAID array?
    PS - I run the latest version of iTunes (7.3.1) and Quicktime (7.2) on my Sony VAIO laptop with Windows XP and it works and I can sync the iPhone there for now.
    Dell XPS 410   Windows Vista   RAID 1 Array

    That sounds good. Those are what i was hopeful about in your case. I haven't seen a report yet of the Intel Matrix issues being fixed by the Dell-tweaked versions of the Matrix updates. However, there have been successes reported with the direct-from-Intel versions of those updates. For example:
    http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=4677972#4677972
    (I'm thinking however, that if the PC manufacturer offers its own versions of the updates on its downloads pages for a model, those are the drivers that folks should go for with their models.)
    Prior to those updates to the Intel Matrix coming out, the state of the art treatment (using the older models of the Matrix drivers/application) is discussed in this post:
    http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=4453007#4453007
    But i'd be inclined to go the way you've been going with the Dell technician first.

  • Can't create raid array in 10.4.6

    I am trying to create a mirrored raid array with two Fantom USB 2 external harddrives using disk utility.
    I am unable to drag the image of any hard drive into the right window and the create button is never activated.
    I have restarted, verified the disks and so on. I hve tried to select a different external disk but that won't work either.
    Any ideas what's up.

    You can try updating the drivers from the makers site, but it could be that Apple won't allow USB drives to RAIDed.
    Unless your recording ET or something where a hard drive failure could mean disaster, mirrors are not ideal form of backup.
    Consider auto-cloning and auto-backup software like DeJaVu or Retrospect.
    What this will do is give you the benefit of time, cloning will "clone" a whole boot drive and make it bootable in case you need it. (You can clone a whole non-boot drive as well.) Auto-backup will copy user type files and folders, but it's not designed to copy a OS from one drive to another.
    http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/systemdiskutilities/dejavu.html

  • How do i monitor the health of my Raid array?

    First, I want to thank Harm, Bill, and all the countless others who continue to give great advice on this forum.  My question is how to I monitor the health of my raid array and how to determine which disk is acting up.   I am using a 3-disk soft raid 0 off my motherboard (gigabyte ud3p).  Seems to work pretty well but occasionally has a hiccup in certain programs.  I wonder if it is a sign of an impending problem or if it is just because it is a soft raid.  I've tried several HD diagnostics (Crystal Disk Info, Active@, HD Tune, etc.) but aside from temperature, they don't give any info about the impending death of my raid 0.  I have the SMART feature turned on in bios.
    To premtively address the critics about the raid 0.  I only do about one video a week and do a backup every night.  So i figured it (and when) it crashes, i'll just lose a days work. The motherboard is suppose to do a raid 5 but it performed really poorly.  My system is configured with additional drives (SSD boot, Raid 0 scratch, and final video) as recommended.  Any advice would be appreciated.
    michael

    The problem with almost all raid controllers is that they do not support SMART. So that is out. With software raids you are even more limited.
    With hardware raid controllers you have web based interfaces that show some basic information, like this:
    but software raids do not. There are two ways to determine possible problems, at least that I know of:
    1. Use drive cages with LED's for the individual drives to show activity and inspect them visually.
    2. Use old-fashioned manual labour to feel vibrations, temperatures and hear clicks on individual drives.
    With only 3 drives in the raid, the chances of guessing correctly are 33.3% to start with and they only increase with manual inspection. A far easier job than in the case of 6 or more disks.
    Sorry I can not offer better suggestions.

  • Ext2 or ext3 for large RAID array

    I'm just in the process of creating a 10TB array of 5 x 2TB drives.
    I've been burned too many times by EXT4 so it's out for the forseable future.
    My concern is the crazy amount of time required to stabalize the file system when periodic checks are mandated.  I'm using ext3 right now on a 7.5TB file system and have tuned the auto checking down to 2 years and 100 mounts.  It's not the best situation but when the system goes down due to over heating (filter plugs every few months), I turn it on, and it goes into a 2 day recovery procedure during the boot process, it's outside the envelope of acceptibility.
    Last edited by TomB17 (2010-06-26 02:32:55)

    TomB17 wrote:
    I appreciate the comments, gentlemen.
    graysky wrote:Not what you asked but can you describe how you have been burnt by ext4?
    I've been burned by the 0 byte file bug.  The files were all there but some of them went to 0 bytes.
    I did that on a backup array about 6~8 months ago.  Thinking, "It's just a backup array", I tried EXT4 for the first time.  It formatted up nicely, 36 hours of rsync, and I was good to go.  I didn't realize I had the 0 byte file issue until my main array had some issues.  When I went to the backup array, there were tons of 0 byte files, including fstab, and mdadm.conf.  That made it more difficult to rebuild the main array.  I did manage to rebuild the main array.  Once done, I formatted the backup array EXT3 and I've been hessitante to experiment with filesystems.
    The 0 byte file bug is well documented, and perhaps long solved, but I'm not ready to get back on that bandwagon.
    For what it's worth, I was burned by EXT3 several times early in it's existance.  That was a different issue.  The whole filesystem would become corrupt after a while.  It was disasterous but I didn't count on my PC then the way I do now.  That was back in the days I could back up to CD-ROM.  I kept at it and eventually EXT3 stabalized.  These days, I trust EXT3 with my life.
    I encountered very similar issues, which resulted in me switching this workstation to FreeBSD and using ZFS for my raid arrays.
    The beauty of that file system far outweighs anything available on Linux at this current time.

  • Can RAID array be bootable startup?

    I have a striped RAID array that I have connected to my iMac by Firewire 800, an external USB drive using USB 2.0, and another external HD connected on Firewire 400. Using SuperDuper!, I've been trying without success to make bootable clones on these three HDs. Even though the cloning seems to go well, when I hold down the option key on startup, the drives don't show up. Are these configurations all capable of being bootable startups? Any suggestions on why they don't show up?

    Hi William, Happy Holidays!
    Supposedly they are, but I've never actually tried the FW/USB combo Raid, tried both seperately in RAID, Which, BTW, I would not recommend, the longest I've had a RAID go is 6 months before destructing themselves beyond recovery.
    Also, I should point out that a single FW/800 Boot drive will be faster than a FW/800 USB combo Raid due to the slowness of USB2. I get around 69 MB/Sec with FW/800, and 29 MB/Sec with a 4 drive USB2 RAID, around 20NB with a 2 drive USB2 RAID!

  • Scratch disk with two RAID arrays

    I have 2 500GB disks in a RAID0 array for Windows / programs and another 1T RAID1 array for data. Where should I place the scratch disk?

    Should I create a dedicated partition on the RAID0 array for the scratch space?
    Please do yourself a big favor and do not do any partitions. They will only slow things down, as the OS thinks it's 2 physical HDD's and will tell them (the two logical HDD's), that it needs data at the same time. Remember, it's one physical HDD (even though it's striped, it's managed as one.
    Now, here are my thoughts:
    1.) RAID 0's will speed things up. However if one of the two drives fails, ALL is lost. I do not recommend using a RAID 0 (any flavor of 0), for the system/program disk. If you do, be sure to have a great backup scheme and use it.
    2.) Now, as of CS, PS no longer has a real limitation on how much HDD space it can use for Scratch Disks. Going back, on was limited to 4GB and had the ability to set 4 of these. Back then, having say a 32GB SCSI HDD, and doing some 4GB partitions made sense. Now, it does not.
    I'd get a very fast, smaller system HDD. Then, you can use either of those RAID arrays for your media, and the other for your Scratch Disks. Having a dedicated hardware RAID controller will speed things up too.
    On my system, used almost exclusively for PS, AI, InDesign, Painter and Video editing, I have 4x 1TB SATA II's for Scratch Disks, 2x 1TB SATA II's for still & video and audio. My system drive is a 500GB SATA II. Were I building now, I'd probably go with RAID 0 for the media and also a RAID 0 for my Video Exports, with non-striped 1TB SATA II's for my Scratch Disks.
    Just some thoughts,
    Hunt

  • Reccomended RAID array 0 hdd disks

    What hdd would you reccomend to set up a raid array (RAID 0) on MSI K8 Neo? Preferably Maxtor, Seagate or Hitachi. Any problems (like max capacity, etc.) while setting up this array?

    Quote
    Originally posted by D_o_S
    Why wouldn't you "trust" RAID 0? I want to boost performance rather than security (don't need extra backups). Why is the onboard Promise controller "bad"? I think it looks like a quite good solution (double bandwith).
    First, everyone needs backups unless they dont need their data (see note about "rm -Rf /" later).
    Second, IMHO on board RAID solutions (which are all software raid to date) are just gimmicks, pointless chrome, feeping creatureitis; in bygone days added to convince gullible users that product A was actually better than product B rather than just product B with extra IDE connectors whacked on it.  They are an approximation of a serious tool, like any serious tool it is dangerous in the hands of amateurs; doubly so when the tool is a low budget immitation of the real thing.  I have invested many hours dealing with the results of software raid in businesses where some code-mokey thought they had a clue and decided to make the server perform "better"; likewise rebuilding (without RAID) the dead machines of friends who thought it made their home PC faster, in most cases they found it faster without RAID-0...
    which leads to...
    I dont see the obsession with RAID 0 (likewise I dont understand why people rampantly benchmark their home machine, does it play at 1280x1024 and 60fps??  then its fast enough), it just doesnt offer any benefit or improvement in real performance for the vast majority of users (I *DO* use hardware ultra wide scsi Raid0+1 on my serious box, so I have some frame of reference here)...  sustained data transfer rates from a RAID-0 with 10k rpm ultra wide scsi drives are negligibly faster than that from an individual drive of the same type.  Sure, interleaving and cascading caches do allow for more prompt access of tables and regularly used small files which helps databasing and sci apps but little else, furthermore tcq and prefetch are rapidly eating into these advantages with modern drives.  Frankly, Id rather have the 8~12% of the CPU used by the on-board raid controller to do the raid work for flinging rectangles around (assuming you play games).  To each their own, however, if you want to do it, do so.
    Third, I dont "trust" any solution which has only unrecoverable failure modes (not so true with advanced hardware raid controllers, but completely true from software raid.), take this on top of the "dont see why" rant above.  If you use a software raid controller, such as that on the k8t neo, you are at the mercy of the stability of your entire system, not just the drives and their controller.  If your CPU/ram combination is flakey, if you overclock (likely if you are so performance obsessed as to want low budget raid-0 to begin with); then the chance of a catastrophic data loss is very high; ANY fandango-on-core experience can FUBAR a software Raid-0.  
    It gets down to this, how much attachment do you have to the data on your system?  could you "rm -Rf /" (insert appropriate windows equivalent) without flinching? if you could, then go ahead, but expect to have total data loss on a better than annual basis. SOFTWARE RAID of any kind is grade A stupid IMHO; HARDWARE Raid-0 (without a -1) is only marginally less so.  RAID is a great tool when properly implemented on a hardware controller, but a tool which offers no benefit to the majority of desktop systems.
    well, I think my opinion on the topic is clear now.  
    err!
    jak.

Maybe you are looking for