so i have 8 western digital 750gb sata2 drives in raid5 array on a highpoint 2320 raid5 card. i had a drive fail that was a recertified drive during initial setup so didn't care and rma'd it and was fine. now about a week into the raid5 being 100% online and full of data another drive (oem not re-certified) has failed in the exact same way.

i have a battery backup sending clean power to it and an Enermax 430watt psu that is plenty for this setup.


both drives are just dead and won't power up/spin.


i have fans blowing directly on the hdds and they're hot to the touch but not so hot i can't keep it on there.


dumb luck this has happened or what could some other issues be?

1/9/2008 12:32:15 PM

they won't power up at all? have you tried running any diagnostic software on them or anything?

1/9/2008 12:34:12 PM

Hear the platters spinning? Any clicking noise?

1/9/2008 12:38:40 PM

Quote :

"won't power up/spin"

1/9/2008 12:39:58 PM

perhaps the circuit boards and going out on them. A lot of activity on the drives during that week of use? Probably wouldn't matter with wear and tear.

1/9/2008 12:44:51 PM

just a lot of writes. i filled up the raid array and have randomly read/written from them.

very low usage after the initial fill up.


they just wouldn't spin at all. showed up as "Degraded" in the raid and raid is critical until i get my new RMA.



i wrote all the data to the array before it was initialized since it could do background initialization. i'm pretty sure it was initialized and working for a few days though.

[Edited on January 9, 2008 at 12:50 PM. Reason : ]

1/9/2008 12:47:34 PM

Terrible things happen to hard drives shipped individually as opposed to on a shipping pallet. Shipping companies may as well play volleyball with them.

1/9/2008 12:52:57 PM

agreed

1/9/2008 1:05:59 PM

came from newegg packaged very well. i assume it was handled with as much care as a consumer can get.


could it be static somehow?

[Edited on January 9, 2008 at 1:26 PM. Reason : ]

1/9/2008 1:26:17 PM

Quote :

"handled with as much care as a consumer can get."

so the dhl guy dribbled it up your drive way and slam dunked it onto your front porch. got it.

1/9/2008 1:45:17 PM

i could have ran over the packaging with my truck and contents would have been fine. buble wrapped with peanuts

either way, drives worked fine for a while then quit, so weren't DOA. i guess if i see another hdd fail after this raid5 rebuild i'm certain it's not the drives but something else (assuming it's the same power failure)

1/9/2008 1:46:29 PM

The drives may be overheating, or the power supply may be outputting shitty power (voltage too low or too high). Test the voltage on the power connector to the missing drive during idle and in-use times. A good power supply shouldn't fluctuate much.

1/9/2008 3:25:06 PM

when i get the rma'd drive in i'm spacing the drives out more to see if that helps. i may try to just find a case with 8x5.25" bays with 120mm fans to space them out... using 3.5" bays makes them too close. right now i have 4x5.25" and 4x3.5" ... the 3.5" drives have failed

1/9/2008 3:30:54 PM

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"Enermax 430watt"

I've never been a fan of this brand and I think you're pushing the wattage given the heat generated by such a system. These kinds of setups are why PC Power and Cooling is in business.

1/9/2008 3:53:31 PM

i just (against my better judgment) ordered 4 500gb western digital drives for $80/each...i hope i don't regret this, but seagate hasn't had a promotion in a while

1/9/2008 4:14:16 PM

i can't remember the last time a seagate failed on me. i've only rma'd WD in the past few years.

i got each 750gb drive for $150 shipped so jumped on it. seagates were $25 more each.



i'll never buy another western digital after this.

[Edited on January 9, 2008 at 4:59 PM. Reason : ]

1/9/2008 4:59:28 PM

where did you get 500GB WD for 80/each? SATA?

1/9/2008 5:06:07 PM

http://www.onsale.com/shop/detail~dpno~7204567.aspx

$120 - $40 MIR...the wd drives in there are pretty decent from what i've read...sata 3gb/s, 16mb cache

i have two at my apartment already popped out...going to put them into a dual enclosure tonight when i get home

1/9/2008 5:17:13 PM

Quote :

"I've never been a fan of this brand and I think you're pushing the wattage given the heat generated by such a system. These kinds of setups are why PC Power and Cooling is in business."

I have 5 hard drives (3 sata 2 ide) as well as a pcie video card, audigy platinum, and tuner card run off an OCZ powerstream 450w. a solid 430w psu is more than enough for a machine just housing drives. whether or not the enermax is solid is another topic of question however.

1/9/2008 5:45:33 PM

Quote :

"whether or not the enermax is solid is another topic of question however."

it's not a new power supply. i've ran drives off of it before in the past with no problems.

if another one dies it's getting replaced and i'm getting a case that has 9x5.25" bays i'm able to put 3 120mm fans in front of. i think the drives maybe have been overheating... even though a 120mm fan is blowing directly on them, they're much hotter than the drives in the 5.25" bay which have been fine.

i just hope the raid5 rebuilds in 36 or so hours without a failure hehe.

[Edited on January 9, 2008 at 6:17 PM. Reason : ]

1/9/2008 6:16:08 PM

I had 3 new seagate drives that went bad within the first week of use - in a box of 4 drives from newegg. It was just a bad batch, either something really bad happened during shipping or they could have been from the same manufacturing batch that had a problem.

just get some spares to keep on hand, RMA them, and move on.

1/10/2008 11:09:49 AM

(8) hard drives shouldn't use more than 100W total under 100% load, so I doubt it's power related.

1/10/2008 11:41:23 AM

WD hasn't sent the RMA yet so I'll probably order another 750gb and keep one with random shit on it as a spare for an instant rebuild. the wait is agonizing.

1/10/2008 5:52:49 PM

system is fine now and the raid5 rebuilt in a few hours... however i've noticed the the case does not seem to be grounded properly.

if i plug in a usb or touch the case when i'm not grounded the pc will reboot.

psu or battery backup problem?

1/21/2008 10:28:13 PM