I have a SCSI RAID controller and the drives keep coming up marked dead/off-line. I can return the drives on-line again, but why is this happening and what can I do to fix it?
Drive randomly marked dead (off line) by SCSI controller.
There are many reasons why a SCSI controller or operating system marks one or more drives off line. Here is a list of common issues, likely to cause a drive to be remarked off line–dead.
It’s important to make sure the cabling, termination, and drive enclosure hardware is suitable based on SCSI specification–or as required by your configuration. Use the…
This post details software driver installation of the Maxtor Ultra ATA 100 and 133 PCI Adapter Card when used with Windows 2000 operating systems.
Preparing the Hard Drive:
Use the Ultra ATA cable supplied with your card and configure the jumpers on the hard drive(s) you’re preparing to install with the appropriate master / slave settings. The primary (master) drive should be connected to the black connector at the end of the cable. If a secondary (slave) drive is also being installed it must be connected to the gray connec tor in the middle of the cable. The blue connector on the cable…
After installing the SATA card and booting into Windows, the Add Hardware Wizard will prompt for loading a driver for a "storage adapter". This process is similar to loading the drivers for the ATA/133 card and should be successful when you point the wizard to the Maxtor SATA drivers, wherever they are located on the machine.
Once complete, the Add Hardware Wizard will prompt again to load driver support for a "Promise SATA Console Processor Device". You won’t be able to load a driver for this device so just ignore it. Cancel the Add Hardware Wizard.
After this is done, the Device…
The most common reason for drives being marked offline is cabling/termination issues. Make sure the cabling is of the highest quality (twisted pair or Teflon ribbon) that’s within SCSI specifications as to maximum bus length, impedance matching, and maximum allowed devices.
For best results, use a system level SCSI terminator (LVD/SE) on the end of the cable, instead of using the last drive for termination. Make sure the hard drives are set to provide SCSI Termination Power, if supported. Rarely is drive firmware an issue more often a SCSI controller BIOS or ASPI driver update.
Try the following troubleshooting steps:
- Check all…
I have a SCSI RAID controller and the drives keep coming up marked dead/off-line. I can return the drives on-line again, but why is this happening and what can I do to fix it?
Drive randomly marked dead (off line) by SCSI controller.
There are many reasons why a SCSI controller or operating system marks one or more drives off line. Here is a list of common issues, likely to cause a drive to be remarked off line–dead.
It’s important to make sure the cabling, termination, and drive enclosure hardware is suitable based on SCSI specification–or as required by your configuration. Use…
There are several items to consider when replacing a drive from a failed RAID. If you are building a new RAID, then all drives in the array should be the identical model if at all possible.
However, if you must replace a failed drive, it can sometimes be difficult to find the same model if that model is out of production. Below are some tips to follow when selecting a replacement.
Keep in mind that the controller may or may not allow different models in a RAID, so check the RAID controller documentation.
- Product life: What is the expected life of the remaining drives? If the other…
Issues using Matrox RT2000 and RT2500 video editing such as dropped frames, out-of-sync audio, or choppy playback.
The Matrox (RT2000)and RT2500 is a "…real time editing platform….to easily capture analog and digital video from a variety of sources, edit projects in real time…then deliver to tape, DVD, CD, and the web….
Tests by Matrox have shown that 1394a (400Mbps) hard drives are not capable of sustaining the data transfer rates that are needed for video editing with the RT2500.
Recommended setup:
- Use a 1394b (800Mbps) Maxtor external coupled with a 1394b interface controller.
- add an additional internal ATA hard drive dedicated for audio and…
Most SCSI RAID controllers will accept different kinds of hard drives. The hard drives should match in capacity points and rotational (RPM) speed. At best, all drives in an array will be identical–at the same firmware revision level.
RAID can be used with any size hard drive. The smallest capacity drive will determine the largest logical volume size for all drives in the array.
Whenever possible select drives from an approved vendor drive compatibility list. This ensures that the hard drive is tested, and should function reliably with your SCSI RAID controller. Untested configurations ’should work’ too. But for best results, select only tested and…
Problem:
After changing RAID modes, the Download and Public shares are sometimes not available. This is an intermittent problem, typically when changing to SPAN mode.
Cause:
This is a firmware issue, and will be fixed in a follow-on release.
Solution:
As a workaround, restore the system to factory defaults, and then select the new RAID mode.
I have a SCSI RAID controller and the drives keep coming up marked dead/off-line. I can return the drives on-line again, but why is this happening and what can I do to fix it?
