SATA disk errors on nforce5
 

Hey, I have a very strange problem. I'm running a MSI K9N ULTRA-2F NF570 motherboard which is a AM2 nForce5 board, two MAXTOR DIAMONDMAX 10 200GB 7200RPM SATA 300 in software RAID 1 with kernel version 2.6.17.7. It's my understanding the support for this chipset is fairly new. I also saw someone mentioning an issue with this chipset and Maxtor drives but these drives are new enough to not have this firmware issue.

The issue I'm having is that about once per week one of the two drives randomly stops responding completely. I an not able to access it with hdparm or in any other fashion. If I reboot, the disk will not be back again. If I shutdown and then start again the disk will be back again and hot adding it to the array works fine. The amount of harddrive traffic doesn't seem to really affect the failure rate as I can mirror back (200 GB of data) and forth between the drives with no failure.

I have so far tried to move both drives to their own SATA channel, reduced the drives from SATA 300 to SATA 150 and moved the drives far appart but the problem persists.

*edit*
Added kernel version, might be important ;)

FYI. If your harddisks are ROHS compliant.. They usually will not work with a ROHS compliant motherboards. I've had this same problem with my maxtor and i had to buy another harddisk. I bought a Western Digital *NOT ROHS* and it works like a charm. A lot of shops do warn for this problem. Others don't.. Mine didn't. Yours didn't either.

A lot of motherboards that I have seen recently now do not have a PATA controller. This is ok, but they will be hard getting them to work. I am not a Highpoint fan but a Highpoint user. I suggest buying Highpoint RocketRAID 1540 or Highpoint RocketRAID 1640 until the kernel developers have update the kernel to handle nVidia nforce 570 chipsets. These two Highpoint controllers should work with out any problems. Just use the Highpoint software that comes with the kernel. However, Maxtor SATA hard drives still have problems, so I suggest using either Hitachi or Western Digital hard drives because they are a lot better for OS drives and file servers.

I suggest using Linux software RAID instead of using software RAID built-in to the controller.

That is loads of crap. RoHS compliant means that the electronics was made with environment friendly materials that the European Agencies have noted. It has nothing to do with operation of the electronic devices. RoHS is all about providing a healthier work environment.

Go to http://www.rohs.gov.uk/ to find out more about RoHS.

I know how ROHS works.. And motherboards with ROHS and Maxtor devices ROHS doesn't work together. Been there done that, plus our local hardware shop warns the customers for this! And they are highly respected by Tweakers.net.

*there was an article about it on Anandtech as well*

I still think you are bullshit unless you give the links. I have not seen any articles at anandtech.

Maxtor always have firmware problems.

You think as much as you'd like! Just make sure it don't start hurting. Links are all in dutch. Btw. it's only the maxtor DM10 with those problems. I didn't buy a WD for nottin. Besides trying windows, i even took the liberty of trying windows.. It didn't work there either!. but i'm not gonna go in further discussion about it, it won't help the person that requires help.

I guess I will go ahead follow through a confirmation on this point here. Maxtor drives, do infact, suck. Big time actually. I have proof, or atleast I had proof, before I proceeded to throw 2 40gb maxtor drivers straight into the trash bin.

In fact I can tell you in great detail why they suck.

First off, their work to noise ratio is awful. And it gets worst with time. Eventually my 7200 rpm maxtor ended up sounding like 10k rpm raptor. But rest assured, it was certainly not as fast as a raptor.

Lifespan sucks. I'll put it terms of lifespan, because MTBF means absolutely nothing to me. The harddrive certainlhy

It lasted for about 5 months maybe, before the click of death came.


This could just be TWO bad experiences, I suppose. But interestingly enough, I have zero such experiences when switched to using western digital harddrives.

And I have personally gone through 3 or 4 computers. I can't really remember anymore.

And the whole thing about ROHS compliant harddrives being used on non ROHS motherboards affecting the situation makes about as much sense as... well it doesn't make much sense at all. I thought briefly about the remote possiblity of firmware detecting non ROHS motherboards. That would be bussiness suicide ofcourse and not even feasible unless all ROHS motherboards made a secret pact.

Thanks for the help all. I don't believe RoHS is the issue since that seems to mostly be about manufacturing process and materials. It seems like I'm stuck with either replacing the drives and hope that works or getting a new SATA controller board. Either way this is an issue with the chipset, the drive or kernel. Which is pretty much what I expected.

Regarding Maxtor making bad drives, I've had very little issues with their IDE drives with them lasting 4+ years but I've now had three Maxtor SATA drives (in Windows) fail completely within a month of deployment. I definitely think their SATA line needs to mature more.