Why RAID controllers & SATA plugs are so badly made and why I'll never use RAID again

[ClickHere2Surf.com]

As happened to me last year when I booted with a drive disconnected from my RAID 0 and "lost" everything, it happened again.

Now I have to ask firstly why are RAID controllers made so that if you accidentally boot with a drive disconnected you loose everything? Is it really that hard to program them to re-recognize a drive? I shouldn't have to loose my entire PC because I booted with a drive accidentally unplugged.

Secondly, what sort of moron invented SATA plugs? I absolutely can't stand them, they just slide in and can be unplugged by a speck of dust falling on them, tjey should "snap" in and not just loosely slide onto the connector, which is why my above problem happened both times, just moving the PC is enough for all SATA plugs to just fall out.

Because of this, I'm forgetting about RAID, unless I go back to properly fitting IDE connectors and drives, I don't care if my PC is half the speed it was I can't keep loosing everything due to ridiculous SATA plugs and poorly programmed RAID controllers which make RAID far more trouble than is worth.

At least it was reliable back in the good old IDE days, but not anymore.

[emr]

Backups are your friend.

emr

[ClickHere2Surf.com]

I have daily backups to tape but that still doesn't solve the SATA RAID problem, those cheap connectors that fall out by themselves combined with the RAID controller "bug" that causes all to be lost if a drive is disconnected even just temporarely makes RAID completely unusable, I'm not gonna make a raid again if I'll loose everything whenever an air currant blows all the SATA plugs out.

What about JBOD, would I loose all my data each time a cable is unplugged with the drives in JBOD mode? I'd rather see just 1 drive than 2 and I'm certainly not maiking a raid egain, even if it mens cutting the performance in half, I'll have to go back to IDE if I want RAID, those IDE plugs certainly never just fell out as the garbage SATA plugs do.

[ClickHere2Surf.com]

What about a windows-made RAID, will that get wiped clean if a cable got unplug and I boot (which happens very frequenly, even just by moving the pc, with these POS SATA cables)? What about JBOD? Can a promise controller do that and if so will that get wiped clean if a cable is unplugged?

I need to know how I'll reconfigure this ASAP.

Is there any way I can get my raid working again without installing win on a new drive and then using a recovery program to restore the broken raid?

[xpuser357]

What about a windows-made RAID, will that get wiped clean if a cable got unplug and I boot (which happens very frequenly, even just by moving the pc, with these POS SATA cables)? What about JBOD? Can a promise controller do that and if so will that get wiped clean if a cable is unplugged?

I need to know how I'll reconfigure this ASAP.

Is there any way I can get my raid working again without installing win on a new drive and then using a recovery program to restore the broken raid?

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You could put a spot of CYANOACRYLATE (Super Glue) on your raid cables
and when harddrive fails just throw away harddrive and cable and pick up
new cable with new drive. All will do ok

[format c:]

Sounds like your running raid 0, which is the least secure of the raid varieties, Becuase your data is striped across two drives ( Split ) it is risky, so when one drive is disconnected or dies your data is useless
Raid 1 is a mirered array and much more secure, If one of the drives dies or is diconnected your data is intact
For the best of both worlds go with a raid 0+1 array of four drives , If one is disconnected the array will still function
If you want to keep costs down, go with a fast SATA drive and a new SATA cable, Use a hard drive in an enclosue or your trusty tape drive for back ups
I would avoid raid 0 altogether
Now about your cables that fall of when you breathe hard, Try a littl glue as suggested to keep them in place
I know on my DFI board ( N-force 4 ) I have fun trying to unplug the darn things , Maybe you got bad cables, try a new one
Or after you move your machine double check those cables to make sure they stayed put

[gemstone]

For the hard drive connections I cured the same problems by epoxy gluing a power and data connector together (used a duff drive to line them having put epoxy on the sides) works well and I have not had a 'fallen' data cable since, plus you dont need to renew those cables when the drives no longer any use. I got the idea from the WD Raptor connector which uses a block that plugs into the data cable port and locks into the power port, you have to use a molex for power, but those blocks will never fall out.

I agree entirely as an engineer the design of these things is pathetic and very amatuerish.

[Ferrit]

Amazing story there Click2Surf
I have yet to have a cable "fall out" on its own
Although i agree they are a little flimsy i dont seem to have any "fall out" on their own

[gazzak]

It's Nero's fault they're falling out. Blame them.

[Ferrit]

Its the N conspiracy
(Nero+Nvidia)

[houseisland]

SATA Backplanes

A cheap SATA backplane might help. You can secure the cables to backplane and still get your drives in and out -- quite obvious if they're not in. Handy also if your card supports fault tolerant RAID options and hot swapping.

Edit: a low heat glue gun from a dollar store is handy for securing connections. Holds well enough and you can still get it apart if you need to. I used to hot glue in slot 1 processors and adapter cards on PC navigation systems for boats -- the rough weather would bounce the slot 1 processors loose even if they were in "so-called" locking clips.

[Kodiak]

Hmmm I have accidently knocked a cable loose installing an adapter card of some sort but I plug it back in and it starts up just fine again and this was on two different boards. Ofcourse mine are nvidia boards.

[ClickHere2Surf.com]

Kodiak: You need to boot while one of the drives is accidentally unplugged for the RAID controller to refuse to recognize the drive ever again without having to delete and rebuild the array.

[Kodiak]

Kodiak: You need to boot while one of the drives is accidentally unplugged for the RAID controller to refuse to recognize the drive ever again without having to delete and rebuild the array.

Exactly what I have done in the past and then plug it back in and away it goes again. Done it several times since one of the plugs is very touchy due to the plstic guide being broke.

[rgharper]

Exactly what I have done in the past and then plug it back in and away it goes again. Done it several times since one of the plugs is very touchy due to the plstic guide being broke.

I also have had a couple of "OOPS!" moments where a drive in an array has come unattached (with or without user intervention ... usually with ). When that happened the RAID controller warned me that the array was broken. I simply turned off the PC, plugged the drive back in, and the array was recovered without any problems. I've had it happen on Intel, nVidia and VIA/SiI controllers.

Dunno what kind of hardware Clicked has but I'd like to know so I can studiously avoid it in the future.