Reusing raid0 drives (stripe) from a different computer ...

John Lewis wrote:
> On Thu, 17 Jan 2008 10:00:14 -0800, Minh Tran-Le<tranle RemoveThis @hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>> I have a computer with an Asus A8N32-Sli motherboard with 4 drives
>> configured as RAID0 (stripe). And my motherboard died but the disks are
>> fine.
>
> hmmm... how did you manage to kill the motherboard ? I happen to have
> a A8N32-SLI in my desktop PC. Still going strong after 2 years or
> so...

I was trying to record a TV show, it hung, I press the reset button.
And it would not come up any more. That motherboard is also around 2
years old (03/2006). I did all the normal testing:
- reset cmos.
- tested memory on a different computer.
- replace cpu.
- replace video.
- replace power supply
and the only one left is the motherboard.

>
> Gonna throw away your AMD processor as well ?.

The cpu is an AMD FX-60 if I can test it and it is working ok I may sell
it on eBay.

> To reasonably guarantee success, the replacement board would have to
> contain exactly the same motherboard chipset(s) providing the RAID
> control. And be configurable through BIOS in eactly the same way as
> your original motherboard.

That's for sure, if I can get the exact same type of mb it would, but I
have looked at used a8n32-sli on eBay and they cost ~ 100$.

>
> And no backups ?????
>
> For somebody who can afford to run 4 RAID0 disks, I would have thought
> that the cost of a 500GByte USB2.0 external backup drive for any
> critical data would have beern trivial. Actual backup tranfer rate
> from disks on A8N32-SLI to a USB2.0 drive external drive is typically
> 1.6GBytes/minute. I run a Western Digital "MyBook" 500GByte external
> drive. Cost me the princely sum of $139 about 6 months ago on a
> deep-discount sale at Staples.
>
> John Lewis
>

No, I have backups but with above 1TB of data, I do not do daily backup.
To do more regular backups I would need either a spare 1TB drive (which
did not exist 2 years ago) or a DLT backup system.
And windows backup and not all compatible with each other but the ntfs
of different version seems to be ok.

Minh Tran-Le.
 >> Stay informed about: Reusing raid0 drives (stripe) from a different computer ... 

On Thu, 17 Jan 2008 21:08:06 -0800, Minh Tran-Le <tranle.RemoveThis@hotmail.com>
wrote:

>John Lewis wrote:
>> On Thu, 17 Jan 2008 10:00:14 -0800, Minh Tran-Le<tranle.RemoveThis@hotmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi,
>>> I have a computer with an Asus A8N32-Sli motherboard with 4 drives
>>> configured as RAID0 (stripe). And my motherboard died but the disks are
>>> fine.
>>
>> hmmm... how did you manage to kill the motherboard ? I happen to have
>> a A8N32-SLI in my desktop PC. Still going strong after 2 years or
>> so...
>
>I was trying to record a TV show, it hung, I press the reset button.
>And it would not come up any more. That motherboard is also around 2
>years old (03/2006).

The A8N32SLI may be covered by a <<3-year>> Asus warranty. You might
want to look into this. Check the docs that came with the board and/or
ask Asus. I do not have my docs handy at the moment, but I do recall
seeing "3-years" somewhere.

> I did all the normal testing:
>- reset cmos.
>- tested memory on a different computer.
>- replace cpu.
>- replace video.
>- replace power supply
>and the only one left is the motherboard.
>
>>
>> Gonna throw away your AMD processor as well ?.
>
>The cpu is an AMD FX-60 if I can test it and it is working ok I may sell
>it on eBay.
>

hmmm,,,, FX60... one of the 8 CPU power-regulators on the board might
have failed. That would sure explain the sudden death. Did you ever
keep an eye on the power-regulator temperature? Did BOTH parts of the
CPU power-regulator section of the MB have excellent ventilation...
such as an adjacent power-supply fan cooling one section and a
rear-case fan cooling the other section? The FX60 is a very
power-hungry beast when running flat-out. Overclocked??.

>> To reasonably guarantee success, the replacement board would have to
>> contain exactly the same motherboard chipset(s) providing the RAID
>> control. And be configurable through BIOS in eactly the same way as
>> your original motherboard.
>
>That's for sure, if I can get the exact same type of mb it would, but I
>have looked at used a8n32-sli on eBay and they cost ~ 100$.
>
>>
>> And no backups ?????
>>
>> For somebody who can afford to run 4 RAID0 disks, I would have thought
>> that the cost of a 500GByte USB2.0 external backup drive for any
>> critical data would have beern trivial. Actual backup tranfer rate
>> from disks on A8N32-SLI to a USB2.0 drive external drive is typically
>> 1.6GBytes/minute. I run a Western Digital "MyBook" 500GByte external
>> drive. Cost me the princely sum of $139 about 6 months ago on a
>> deep-discount sale at Staples.
>>
>> John Lewis
>>
>
>No, I have backups but with above 1TB of data, I do not do daily backup.
>To do more regular backups I would need either a spare 1TB drive (which
>did not exist 2 years ago) or a DLT backup system.
>And windows backup and not all compatible with each other but the ntfs
>of different version seems to be ok.
>
>Minh Tran-Le.

I suspect that for at least 95% of that data you do not need to run
RAID0 at all. I have no idea why you would ever want to RAID0-stripe 4
disks in a <desktop> PC, except for some weird "bragging rights". For,
example streaming video, even at compressed-HD-rates is far, far
below the read or write rates of any single modern (7200RPM) disk. The
only time you might truly need RAID0 at all is for games with long
load-times. Also it is very unwise to put your OS partition on a 4x
RAID0 array without any regular backups. Unless you have lots of time
to burn on re-installs. The benefits today of putting the OS
partition on RAID0 are truly miniscule, especially if you have a
system with lots of RAM.

Also, how much of your data is "critical" i.e not readily recoverable
from external sources? It is that which determines how much backup
storage you really need.

It does seem very odd that you would put 1TB of data in the hands of 4
RAID0 disks. Disks are still amongst the highest-percentage failure
items in any modern-computer. Just one disk of the 4 fail (or go
flaky... recovery of RAID0 stripes from a flaky disk is a very fragile
operation) and poof to ALL your data--- and the OS in your case. And
if you do find you have a flaky disk in your 1TB RAID0 array... where
do you go for backup before it fails?? Since the data is spread over 4
disks, you have to back it ALL up. Better buy that terabyte of USB2.0
drive right now.

Plus you are very painfully experiencing the negative virtues of RAID
arrays in the event of a motherboard failure. If you had your data
normally stored on single disks, recovery would have been trivial
except for the OS re-install for a new motherboard.

John Lewis
 >> Stay informed about: Reusing raid0 drives (stripe) from a different computer ... 

John Lewis wrote:
>
> The A8N32SLI may be covered by a<<3-year>> Asus warranty. You might
> want to look into this. Check the docs that came with the board and/or
> ask Asus. I do not have my docs handy at the moment, but I do recall
> seeing "3-years" somewhere.

Yes the A8N32SLI is covered by a 3year warranty but ASUS RMA website
located at http://helpdesk.asus.com does not do online RMA submission
any more and they have not replied to my emails to RMA DeleteThis @asus.com (or they
could just be slow).

>
> hmmm,,,, FX60... one of the 8 CPU power-regulators on the board might
> have failed. That would sure explain the sudden death. Did you ever
> keep an eye on the power-regulator temperature? Did BOTH parts of the
> CPU power-regulator section of the MB have excellent ventilation...
> such as an adjacent power-supply fan cooling one section and a
> rear-case fan cooling the other section? The FX60 is a very
> power-hungry beast when running flat-out. Overclocked??.
>

My case was well ventilated 1 fan in front and 2 fans in the back and I
was running speedfan to monitor the multiple temperatures and fan speed.

>
> I suspect that for at least 95% of that data you do not need to run
> RAID0 at all. I have no idea why you would ever want to RAID0-stripe 4
> disks in a<desktop> PC, except for some weird "bragging rights". For,
> example streaming video, even at compressed-HD-rates is far, far
> below the read or write rates of any single modern (7200RPM) disk. The
> only time you might truly need RAID0 at all is for games with long
> load-times. Also it is very unwise to put your OS partition on a 4x
> RAID0 array without any regular backups. Unless you have lots of time
> to burn on re-installs. The benefits today of putting the OS
> partition on RAID0 are truly miniscule, especially if you have a
> system with lots of RAM.
>
> Also, how much of your data is "critical" i.e not readily recoverable
> from external sources? It is that which determines how much backup
> storage you really need.
>
> It does seem very odd that you would put 1TB of data in the hands of 4
> RAID0 disks. Disks are still amongst the highest-percentage failure
> items in any modern-computer. Just one disk of the 4 fail (or go
> flaky... recovery of RAID0 stripes from a flaky disk is a very fragile
> operation) and poof to ALL your data--- and the OS in your case. And
> if you do find you have a flaky disk in your 1TB RAID0 array... where
> do you go for backup before it fails?? Since the data is spread over 4
> disks, you have to back it ALL up. Better buy that terabyte of USB2.0
> drive right now.
>
> Plus you are very painfully experiencing the negative virtues of RAID
> arrays in the event of a motherboard failure. If you had your data
> normally stored on single disks, recovery would have been trivial
> except for the OS re-install for a new motherboard.
>
> John Lewis

Yes in retrospect RAID0 (or any RAID except RAID1) is not worth the
headache you get if you have a controller failure (unless you have one
of those server that has 2 of everything). I may just go on eBay to get
one of those used A8N32-SLI.

Minh Tran-Le.
 >> Stay informed about: Reusing raid0 drives (stripe) from a different computer ... 

On Fri, 18 Jan 2008 11:10:33 -0800, Minh Tran-Le <tranle DeleteThis @hotmail.com>
wrote:

>
>Yes in retrospect RAID0 (or any RAID except RAID1) is not worth the
>headache you get if you have a controller failure (unless you have one
>of those server that has 2 of everything). I may just go on eBay to get
>one of those used A8N32-SLI.
>

I would definitely exhaust the repair/replacement route via Asus
first!!

I view eBay with great suspicion for used-technology purchases. Make
sure you get a used motherboard from a vendor with >99% satisfaction
rating and a clear declaration of "return for full refund if not
working".

If you do a Google search under "A8N32-SLI new for sale" you will
actually will find some hits. You may not like the price(s) !

BTW if you did not have a fan blowing directly over EACH set of
regulator heat-sinks, you might accidentally have set yourself up for
a failure with the FX60. I run a Zalman 9500 CPU cooler AND a rear
case-fan which just happen to be in-line and both nicely ventilating
the heat-pipe heat-sink over the rear regulators. Plus my power-supply
has a fan that draws air directly over the second quad of CPU
regulators. If you get a replacement MB of the same type, you might
want to pay careful attention to regulator ventilation. If your MB
suddenly failed completely without any previous warning whatsover, it
does seem very likely that a CPU voltage-regulator failure might be
the root cause. As a power-load, I have a more modest setup --- a
4400+ overclocked to 2.6GHz...

John Lewis


>Minh Tran-Le.
>
 >> Stay informed about: Reusing raid0 drives (stripe) from a different computer ...