I'm having lots of trouble with Adaptec controllers. Anyone got any suggestions for a good stable SAS RAID controller? I need it to drive 32+ drives...
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I'm having lots of trouble with Adaptec controllers. Anyone got any suggestions for a good stable SAS RAID controller? I need it to drive 32+ drives...
Surprised you are having issues with adaptec as I have heard good things about new speeds from there new chipsets.
32 drives from a single controller had someone all me last month using the LSI 8888ELP with a SAS expander of up 30 drives (2 x RAID 6's).
http://www.lsi.com/storage_home/prod...elp/index.html
Well it's not the speed that's troubling me. As you know, the performance and stability of these products differ drastically when running on Linux. With the 51245 with 15 Drives raid0, I was getting 1GB throughput on Windows 2003. On Linux, I could only get max 500MB.
The problem is i'm getting alot of command aborts and it is affecting the VMs now..
On one of our test systems we have 2 DSS with the 3Ware 9690's and Areca 1680 and using the Auto Failover w/ VMware and have not received these abort messages so far. The LSI 8888ELP that the customer is using is not using it with VMware.
Anyone with this Adaptec controller receiving these error messages?
I also have an Areca 1680. It appears to be running fine. I haven't had any issues - yet...
G'day Eneal,
What drives are you running with the Adaptec?
We've had a lot of problems with Seagate ES.2's until you update the firmware from SNx to ANx.
The Adaptec KB article is here:
Ask Adaptec
Strangely they have now qualified the KB to state that the SN05 firmware (the level shipped to us mid 2008) is ok for the 51245.
The other thing to check is it may be network related, if you download the logfiles from DSS and look in the test.log for the hdparm entires. This should give you an idea of what the raw speed of the Raid0 array is.
Rgds Ben
Are you guys using the validated drives with Adaptec controllers? They have a list of validated drives. If you're having problems, you should be able to report it to Adaptec and seek help from them....
Dun scare me, all I heard was Adaptec should be the choice if you're running serious enterprise stuff....
till this day I have problems with the ES2 drives.
and YES we purchased HW that was on the HCL. I have problems with ES2 drives using Areca controllers AND Adaptec controllers.
all of these controllers suffer with major issues. I'd rather go software raid if RAID10 was available.
What problems were you having with the ES2 drives and Areca controllers? We have a 12TB Raid 1+0 array running off them, and I want to keep a lookout for any similar problems.Quote:
Originally Posted by enealDC
Well, with the areca controllers, make absolute sure that you have the LATEST FIRMWARE. That's v1.46, but NOT JUST ANY VERSION 1.46!!! You MUST have the latest version, which has released January 2009. If it's before that, then it you might have a problem with time-out issues (i.e. a drive will fail out of an array under high load because it doesn't return data to the controller in time). This is a problem with some SAS drives (I think the 1TB 7200 RPM seagate ones), and might also be a problem with the ES.2 drives under the arc-1680 raid cards.
Bottom line is make sure your areca raid cards have the latest firmware. There's an older version of 1.46 and a newer version. Make sure you have the NEWER one that was released after January 2009!
If you DO have two drives fail in a RAID 5 under Areca, DON'T PANIC! There are ways to get your RAID functional again, as long as your drives aren't COMPLETELY toast. A lot of times you have a drive fail, the drive will still work, but it just timed out so it was dropped from the array.
Also, make sure you have firmware sn06 or later on your ES.2 drives.
Okay, I had made sure I had the latest and greatest firmware before our array went hot. About the only thing is that we have version SN05 on all our drives. The array has been running without fail for months now, so I'm tentative to apply a new firmware when we've had no indication of a failure. Here's hoping! :)
Well, you should be fine, then. But, if you ever want to reformat your array for another reason, you might consider updating the firmware. But, you shouldn't bother bringing down a production system for a hard-drive firmware update if you aren't having problems.
BUT DO UPDATE THE ARECA FIRMWARE!!!!!! AS SOON AS POSSIBLE! If you are dropping lots of drives from your raidsets under areca and high loads, it is likely because your areca firmware is old and has the time-out bug.
BTW, it's really the SN04 firmware on the barracudas that has all the issues.
Yeah I just double checked. Both of the Sans we run are on the latest Areca firmware by date. I had made sure 2 months ago when I built them that they had the latest firmwares, as I knew it could be ages before we move them up to a new one. I remember the trouble with the SN04, mainly how it affected the 1.5TB drives. I had one that was affected, but it wasn't in a RAID array. Updated the firmware anyhow though :). Thanks for the replies man!
BTW, updating the areca firmware is a piece of cake. You can upload the firmware to the areca raid's webgui and it will be applied on the next restart. The arecas have a dual-firmware, so it won't get bricked in case something happens while it is uploading the new firmware.
is Adaptec a better choice than others?
I think that the Areca controller is better than the adaptec becase of the out of band mgmt.
But the Adaptec card supports RAID5EE + 1EE. Lastly, the Adapec HBA takes FOREVER to boot!
Oh yeah, you can even update all the firmware on your drives using the Areca controller. But you have to have the latest SAS firmware for the controller. Managing Areca firmware is a pain though because you have so many different components (e.g. BIOS, firmware, SAS)