[Kremlar]

I'm having a serious issue with 12 WD3000HLFS drives installed on 2 production servers running Windows Server 2008 R2 64-Bit and Windows Server 2008 64-Bit. Both servers are configured with identical hardware, the significant specs are as follows:

Intel SC5650UP Chassis
Intel S3420GPLC Motherboard
Intel AXX6DRV3GR Hot-Swap Backplanes
Intel SRCSASBB8I RAID Controllers

Each server has 6 drives installed (2 in a RAID1, 4 in a RAID5). All drivers/firmwares are up to date on the controller, motherboard, and backplane.

Both servers have been experiencing seemingly random drives being marked as "failed" - 6 drives total in about 1.5 months. 3 of drives were replaced, the rest were simply rebuilt using the same drives since we started doubting an actual drive failure. 3 drives dropped in about 1 week, then we had a month or so of success, followed by 3 more drops in a span of less than a week.

All drives are reported as running firmware 4V02 per the RAID controller. One sample drive I pulled had a mfg date of 10/7/09.

The drives are listed on Intel's hardware compatibility sheet, so I thought we were safe going with them. Intel has not been of any assistance other than pointing me to this thread. WD has not been of any help at all so far.

Has anyone had any successful resolution to random RAID dropout issues with these drives?

This post has been edited by Kremlar: 08 February 2010 - 04:15 PM

[jpiszcz]

Kremlar, on 08 February 2010 - 01:41 PM, said:

I'm having a serious issue with 12 WD3000HLFS drives installed on 2 production servers running Windows Server 2008 R2 64-Bit and Windows Server 2008 64-Bit. Both servers are configured with identical hardware, the significant specs are as follows:

Intel SC5650UP Chassis
Intel S3420GPLC Motherboard
Intel AXX6DRV3GR Hot-Swap Backplanes
Intel SRCSASBB8I RAID Controllers

Each server has 6 drives installed (2 in a RAID1, 4 in a RAID5). All drivers/firmwares are up to date on the controller, motherboard, and backplane.

Both servers have been experiencing seemingly random drives being marked as "failed" - 6 drives total in about 1.5 months. 3 of drives were replaced, the rest were simply rebuilt using the same drives since we started doubting an actual drive failure. 3 drives dropped in about 1 week, then we had a month or so of success, followed by 3 more drops in a span of less than a week.

All drives are reported as running firmware 4V02 per the RAID controller. One sample drive I pulled had a mfg date of 10/7/09.

The drives are listed on Intel's hardware compatibility sheet, so I thought we were safe going with them. Intel has not been of any assistance other than pointing me to this thread. WD has not been of any help at all so far.

Has anyone had any successful resolution to random RAID dropout issues with these drives?

Not that I am aware of, the only "fix" is to replace with non-VR disks.

[continuum]

Any idea who actually makes the controller? (it's definitely not intel-- perhaps LSI?) Check the actual manufacturer's site to see if they have any additional compatibility notes, such as jumpering the drives down to SATA150 or maybe you need a different firmware on the disks, controller, or both.

[Kremlar]

I believe it's an LSI 8708EM2. I do notice that LSI has newer firmware available (1/10) than Intel (8/09), but I typically try to stick with Intel tested/approved firmware and drivers whenever possible. Perhaps I'll switch to the latest LSI firmware/drivers in this case.

I'm also being give a new firmware from WD to try.

[Kremlar]

I updated the firmware of the controller to the latest from LSI, and also loaded the new firmware from WD (4V03). Will post back my results.

[cod13]

Hello Kremlar,

We have similar unexplainable failures in two storages with each 12 WD3000HLFS Disks.
Could you please let me know from where did you receive the V0403 Firmware?

Kremlar, on 08 February 2010 - 07:41 PM, said:

I'm having a serious issue with 12 WD3000HLFS drives installed on 2 production servers running Windows Server 2008 R2 64-Bit and Windows Server 2008 64-Bit. Both servers are configured with identical hardware, the significant specs are as follows:

Intel SC5650UP Chassis
Intel S3420GPLC Motherboard
Intel AXX6DRV3GR Hot-Swap Backplanes
Intel SRCSASBB8I RAID Controllers

Each server has 6 drives installed (2 in a RAID1, 4 in a RAID5). All drivers/firmwares are up to date on the controller, motherboard, and backplane.

Both servers have been experiencing seemingly random drives being marked as "failed" - 6 drives total in about 1.5 months. 3 of drives were replaced, the rest were simply rebuilt using the same drives since we started doubting an actual drive failure. 3 drives dropped in about 1 week, then we had a month or so of success, followed by 3 more drops in a span of less than a week.

All drives are reported as running firmware 4V02 per the RAID controller. One sample drive I pulled had a mfg date of 10/7/09.

The drives are listed on Intel's hardware compatibility sheet, so I thought we were safe going with them. Intel has not been of any assistance other than pointing me to this thread. WD has not been of any help at all so far.

Has anyone had any successful resolution to random RAID dropout issues with these drives?

[Kremlar]

From WD themselves. You have to bark loud, but if you do you'll get someone who can help.

I have no idea if this new firmware will help, probably will not know for a couple months since we had a month+ gap between sets of failures.