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  1. #1
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    * Dell R210 + H200 = 400 Hours for builds raid array ??

    Hello

    DELL R210
    Intel Xeon X3430 2.40GHZ
    2GB UDIMM Single rank
    PERC H200 controller Raid
    BIOS and H200 have last firmware installed
    --

    2 x 2TB Wester Digital SATA 3 Gb/s 3.5 Inch 64 MB cache(Caviar Green - WD20EARS)

    --

    We build a RAID 1 array.. but.. take 40 Hours for 10% ??

    This means that for build 100% array need 400 Hours.. 16 days ??

    Not possible.. there is any issue ..

    any suggest / help ?

    Thanks

  2. #2
    I had such issue with bad controller. But you are lucky, mine one made 10% in 10 hours. And for sure controller was OK before firmware update. I just send it to RMA)

  3. #3
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    since your using poor performing drives that are 2tb in size? Yes I can totaly expect/see that.

    Why are you using those junky green drives? They die left and right.
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  4. #4
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    Do the green drives even work that well in RAID 1? From my understanding, because they have variable drive speed they didn't work that great in RAID.

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by Spudstr View Post
    since your using poor performing drives that are 2tb in size? Yes I can totaly expect/see that.

    Why are you using those junky green drives? They die left and right.
    Sure, is not enterprise classe, but we have in the past installed WD 2TB (different series) and haven't any issue at this time ..

  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by webstyler View Post
    Sure, is not enterprise classe, but we have in the past installed WD 2TB (different series) and haven't any issue at this time ..

    I'll give you a quick brief/intro on the harddrive world and how these "green" drives and other low quality drives get to where they get. Realistically they build each drive the same then they put each drive through a series of QC tests. The top of the line drives get OEM'd to venders such as IBM, SUN/oracle, etc. Then they go down into their own enterprise class, then raid/biz class then whats left goes to the consumer class.

    Sure the green drives might be "green thinking with a special controller" but the above senario is the life cycle of your typical hard drive and how it falls down its little family tree.

    When you deal with drives in the magnitude of 100's you will see the bad apples and batches pretty clearly. Those green drives are cheap for a reason.
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  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by Spudstr View Post
    I'll give you a quick brief/intro on the harddrive world and how these "green" drives and other low quality drives get to where they get. Realistically they build each drive the same then they put each drive through a series of QC tests. The top of the line drives get OEM'd to venders such as IBM, SUN/oracle, etc. Then they go down into their own enterprise class, then raid/biz class then whats left goes to the consumer class.

    Sure the green drives might be "green thinking with a special controller" but the above senario is the life cycle of your typical hard drive and how it falls down its little family tree.

    When you deal with drives in the magnitude of 100's you will see the bad apples and batches pretty clearly. Those green drives are cheap for a reason.
    Ok, thanks

    So you think the time request for raid array depend by drive right ?

    Do you have any suggest about WD series (or seagate) for best performance but "light" price ?

    Thanks

  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by webstyler View Post
    Ok, thanks

    So you think the time request for raid array depend by drive right ?

    Do you have any suggest about WD series (or seagate) for best performance but "light" price ?

    Thanks

    the WD Black series work just fine and even possible venture to the blue series.
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  9. #9
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    choice of drive grade aside, it seems webstyler's dilemma is centered around RAID controller rather than drives themselves.

    sure, WD green's are much inferior than black/RE drives, but if RAID controller issue was not resolved, then even a pair of 15K SAS enterprise drives wouldn't help him to improve the RAID1 build time.

    according to dell published spec, it seems H200 controller has no buffer/cache nor it gives you the option to add cache+BBU at all.
    http://www.dell.com/content/topics/t...us&l=en&cs=555
    under this circumstance, the RAID card performance can suffer a great deal. perhaps you will need to buy a standalone PERC card with buffer + BBU to get real improvement. I'll let Dell experts on these forums to chip in.
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  10. #10
    The green drives are going to be totally inappropriate for a hardware raid card. Not only do they not have TLER (time limited error recovery), a feature very necessary for hardware raid cards, but because they have variable RPMs, you cannot count on the performance being consistent minute to minute. Both of these things combined plays hell with raids, especially hardware raids.

    If you want to use cheap drives in raid, then you need to use a software raid because it won't kick a drive out of the array just because it takes a little longer to respond to commands from time to time, like a hardware raid card will. Even then, you'll want to use drives that have a constant RPM, like WD blue or black. Green drives are not really appropriate for raid, period.

    That said, the rebuild time for a raid 1 is totally out of whack, even considering the brand and model of the drives, and therefore I would suspect either a defective drive or a defective raid card.
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  11. #11
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    I've seen 8x 1TB take 72 hours to build a raid 5, I've seen 12x 2tb take a 100hrs to build.

    400 hrs for 2tb = something is wrong.
    'Ripcord'ing is the only way!

  12. #12
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    Just to add to the common theme. WD Greens are terrible. We tried them in our backup servers since they were so cheap, but they fail at least 10x as much as other desktop drives. Ended up swapping out half within the first two years. This is not just a case of lack of TLER, we'd run SMART diagnostics on them and they come back bad.

    Rebuilding an 8x1TB RAID-6 array on those drives took about 5 days, so if you're seeing such long rebuild times for your array, check both the controller and new disk for errors (we saw this a lot with a brand new green once the rebuild started and stressed the drive).

    As for cheap drives to use, we are currently using Samsung Spinpoint F3 drives in our backup servers and have had good reliability and performance so far. Would still recommend using RE drives for anything production, though.

  13. #13
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    sounds like bad controller or cache turned off on control and or drives
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  14. #14
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    Hello

    do you think the issue can solve with one of this wester digital HD:

    WD2003FYYS
    WD2002FAEX

    suggest ??

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by webstyler View Post
    Hello

    do you think the issue can solve with one of this wester digital HD:

    WD2003FYYS
    WD2002FAEX

    suggest ??
    WD2003FYYS is the RE4 (raid edition). That will work fine with a hardware raid card.

    WD2002FAEX is the Black. This will work fine with software raid, but I would not run it with a hardware raid card.

    However, before you upgrade to either drive, you should try to find out if there is anything wrong with your raid card.
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  16. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by webstyler View Post
    Hello

    do you think the issue can solve with one of this wester digital HD:

    WD2003FYYS
    WD2002FAEX

    suggest ??
    if your H200 was defective, then it wouldn't help by changing drives. unfortunately, you will need to put a pair RE drives on it so that you can rule out drive problem.

    H200 has no buffer RAM at all, and you can't add to it either. even so, 6-8 hours 2x 2TB RAID1 sync is acceptable, but definitely not 400 hours. Adaptec 2405 can 100% sync up a pair of 2TB RE4 RAID-1 in about 3~4 hours.
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  17. #17
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    Hello

    Before change drive we make a test: remove controller H200 and use integrated S100 to build array

    But don't found where see building array progress .. :/

    Any idea ?

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