Why you shouldn't use a Syba SD-ATA133R for RAID

[Stereodude]

A Short cautionary tale:

Buy Syba SD-ATA133R card and two WD3200SB (raid edition) drives. Make (R)AID-0 array. Copy ~500GB of data to RAID array. 5 days later lose all data when Syba card decides it doesn't like 1 of the Raid Edition drives. WD Diagnostics DOS tool reports a cable error with drive on Syba card. WD Diagnostics DOS tool says the drive is fine when connected to onboard in VIA controller. Take out Syba card and throw in garbage and feel better.

 

[Mercutio]

I'd blame Western Digital.

But that's just me.

 

[Stereodude]

I'd blame Western Digital.

But that's just me.

Other than your dislike for WD, what's the theory here? The Syba card now can't even read the model number of the drive correcly. Instead of being a WD3200SB-Mxxxxx it's a WD3200SB%Nxxxxx.

 

[Mercutio]

Western Digital is also responsible for the failure of Democracy in Afghanistan.

See how easy it is?

Honestly, though, you got one bad card. I don't think that's a reason to indict the whole brand. It's not like my had-more-drives-fail-than-actually-owned-in-a-single-year experience with WD.

 

[Stereodude]

Honestly, though, you got one bad card. I don't think that's a reason to indict the whole brand. It's not like my had-more-drives-fail-than-actually-owned-in-a-single-year experience with WD.

So, you think another card will not exhibit the same problem?

I think I will replace it with something else. Any suggestions for a decent PATA RAID 0/1/JBOD PCI card?

 

[Mercutio]

With Syba, I don't know. I have a couple Syba 4-port SATA cards that work just fine for me, but since they were $30 apiece, I've always thought of them as too good to be true.

 

[GIANT]

...a decent PATA RAID...

Even though I haven't tested the WD "RAID Edition" drives in a RAID scenario, the *only* PATA drives I'd recommend for RAID are HitachIBM GXP series. The Hitachi (and earlier IBM) GXP series drives are easily the ones that I've had the best results from for RAID implementation, with Maxtor MaxLine being a little fussy but decent overall.

But then again, I'd run like hell from the idea of implementing *any* sort of new PATA RAID in these days and times. SATA is far more reliable for RAID than ATA133, ATA100, ATA66, or ATA33 ever were.

 

[Stereodude]

...a decent PATA RAID...

Even though I haven't tested the WD "RAID Edition" drives in a RAID scenario, the *only* PATA drives I'd recommend for RAID are HitachIBM GXP series. The Hitachi (and earlier IBM) GXP series drives are easily the ones that I've had the best results from for RAID implementation, with Maxtor MaxLine being a little fussy but decent overall.

But then again, I'd run like hell from the idea of implementing *any* sort of new PATA RAID in these days and times. SATA is far more reliable for RAID than ATA133, ATA100, ATA66, or ATA33 ever were.

I have a RAID-1 and an RAID-5 on a 3ware card that has generally worked fine. I have to swap a few drives on the RAID-5 card cause they've gone bad, but no real complaints.

I already have 2 PATA WD3200SB's and I'm just looking to JBOD/(R)AID-0 them for now, but I'd rather Windows not handle this. Hence, why I'm looking for a PATA RAID card.

 

[LiamC]

But then again, I'd run like hell from the idea of implementing *any* sort of new PATA RAID in these days and times. SATA is far more reliable for RAID than ATA133, ATA100, ATA66, or ATA33 ever were.

Why do you say this?

 

[LiamC]

:evil:

I am the unmaker! Or P!!!667. I can never remember which...

If Intel weren't superstitious, why wasn't the P!!!866 called the 867? Crap, Intel can't even keep their marketing lies straight.

In cae you got this far and are still wondering what drugs I took, check out my post count

 

[Mercutio]

Why do you say this?

The ATA spec wasn't created with RAID in mind. You could only read data off one drive per channel at a time, for example.
Gary has asserted that IBM/Hitachi engineers have been developing and testing PATA drives for much longer than other companies in the past. I don't know if it's true, but anecdotally I can say *GXPs seem to work well in arrays while Maxtors seem decidedly underwhelming.

 

[sechs]

I'd blame Western Digital.

But that's just me.

I'd blame 'em too.

How many times has someone had a Western Digital drive fall out of an array?

 

[Will Rickards]

I had a syba card (Silicon Image chipset) for about 1 - 2 years and it was fine. Aside from figuring out that I had to flash it to get it to be a regular versus raid controller, it worked just fine.
No WD drives though, only maxtor.