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ok so here is the plan.......

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stereoud7

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Feb 20, 2010
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The D
This is kinda a long post encompassing issues from other sections in forum so forgive me if i chose wrong section to post in.

i currently have a small business server that i believe has a motherboard who's raid controller is about to die.

System details:
AMD 955 BE am3 cpu
GIGABYTE GA-790XT-UD5
8 gigs mem
windows vista 64 bit business
(4) 750 gb WD black hard drives RAID 10 as data drive (on AMD SATA controler)
(2) 750 gb WD black drives RAID 1 OS Drive. (on Jmicron SATA Controller)
****system is used as a database server and to host quickbooks for small office use on terminals.

Symptoms:
Will not do cold boot. upon cold boot computer can not find operating system. if you press cont-alt-del at this point it will see array on second boot and OS will load fine.

every other day or so when i come into work system is turned itself off. has been happening for about 3 weeks now.

Whats happened so far:
i have been fiddling with system on and off for about a week now trying to address problem. put a Siig pci express sata 2 ex5ternal card in it, got a sata external dock and put acronis home 2010 on it. have cloned both arrays to large WD green drives. I really don't like the system. i don't use AMD products very often, i don't know if it's just that or if something is seriously wrong with computer. - For instance, took over 12 hours to do proper format of 1.5tb WD reen hard drive hooked up in external dock with e-sata connection. takes like 10 hours to clone 1.376tb partition over e-sata connection. this is way longer than it seems it should. - other gripe, with the AMD raid controller, if you have to 6 sata ports set to RAID, all of the 6 ports have to be unused or part of the raid,(really dumb). so i have to use an IDE dvd rom drive.

the more i work with the system the more I hate it. what i really want to do now is somehow move the existing data and OS installs over to a socket 1366 i7.

i have an EVGA 141-BL-E757 board and a 920 that are not in use. the EVGA board has only the 6 intel SATA ports. so that would cover both existing RAID arrays and i could use IDE dvd rom drive again. i have not tested clones yet to see if the work correctly, i need to do this. i've used true image a few times before. I will probably have to repair OS drive with windows install disks and everything should be fine with clones plugged into old AMD server (RAID arrays not takedn out just disabled in case i have to re clone or something) and just change drive letters to what they were and everything shiould work i hope. at that point i was thinking of upraging OS to windows 7 professional 64 bit. that will enable me to take clones, now with windows 7 and happily functioning, and clone then onto my new i7 system. Once i know that clones are working perfectly in AMD system and windows 7 is all happy and set up, i'll take the old RAID array and rebuild it on EVGA i7 mobo, then use true image dsk to clone old server onto i7 computer, windows 7 should be able to handle most driver issues i think. i can probably fix anyhting it can't, i can't anticipate anything though. (scares me, not sure what COULD go wrong really).

so anyway that's what I'm thinking,

other thoughts are possible getting this controller card
http://www.adaptec.com/en-US/products/Controllers/Hardware/sata/entry/AAR-1430SA/
for use on RAID 10 array.

that would take pressure off intel SATA controller. for some reason i have had bad luck with ich10r controllers and drives falling out of RAID lately. seems to happen alot. i don't know if it's cause i always use gigabyte boards and they have something wrong with them or if its that i always use WD black drives. was hoping getting the RAID card might help. WOULD LIKE THOUGHTS ON THIS.

****please let me know what you think of my plan, was going to take weekend of June 4th to 6th and try and get this done. would like to have all clones and parts ready when i start.
 
That all-or-nothing SATA-RAID must be Gigabyte thing. I've got ASUS boards and don't have to do that, though ASUS does require them to be configured in pairs ...
 
That all-or-nothing SATA-RAID must be Gigabyte thing. I've got ASUS boards and don't have to do that, though ASUS does require them to be configured in pairs ...

the intel ich10r raid controller on gigabtye boards is whats giving me fits, but only when i have more than 1 raid ARRAY, OR IF IT'S A RAID 10 OR 0+1.

it's my understanding that the SATA RAID issues on AMD boards is an AMD thing (problematic on all AMD chip set motherboards)...... the AMD raid controller, if enabled can only support 1 array and all the SATA ports on the controller are somehow involved so that the extra ports can not be used. like if you have a 2 drive array the empty 4 sata ports are now useless. ASUS boards have the same problem. it's annoying cause if you have a raid array your forced to use an IDE optical drive, unless you have the extra jmicron ports anyway. i love the intel system. how you can short skroke your drives and use whats left in other arrays, or having multiple arrays on same controller, you do seem to loose a bit on long term stability when you do this, but it's nice to be able to.

but whats everyone's view on my plan? does it make sense?

are there things I'm not anticipating?

thanks :)
 
My sig rig has a two-disc RAID 1 array along with a standard format storage drive and a system drive (all four are SATA). I also have a file server with a 4-disc RAID 5 array for network storage along with a system disc on the second (built-in) SATA controller. :shrug:

I always thought any RAID 0 was kinda' useless and I can't imagine needing more than one array on a system, so I obviously haven't tried those configurations ...
 
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