SATA RAID Support

[David G. Lawrence]

> > Under heavy load (I/O load on the disks constantly over 200 tps, average
> > at about 250 tps, peaks over 600 tps) a random drive disconnects from
> > the RAID 10. After removing the drive from the config and rescanning the
> > bus, the drive does not show up anymore. The only way to get the drive
> > back is to unplug the drive (or switch the computer off, so that power
> > is removed).  After that there is no problem to rebuild the RAID with
> > the drive.
> 
> Interesting. AFAIR the same sort of errors occured with some older WD
> drives and 3Ware 750x controllers.
> The solution was to flash the drives firmware.
> 
> A quick googling found some reference to the problem on this document:
> http://japan.3ware.com/products/pdf/Drive_compatibility_list.pdf

   Here is what I dug up from Western Digital:

IDE RAID Compatibility Upgrade - 3Ware Cards	
Version	Version 1.07	
Publish Date	Apr, 2003	
Description	This utility runs within DOS and is used to update WD drives
that are connected to one or more 3Ware 7500-X IDE (Parallel ATA) RAID
controllers. Affected drives: WD drives with capacities between 40GB and
120GB. WD drives with greater than 120GB capacity with Mfg. date codes
earlier than 3/25/03. 	
Download	
Wdc_upd.zip(140 KB)
Operating System	
Windows 2000
Windows XP
Windows ME
Windows 98SE
Windows 98
Instructions	
Download the wdc_upd.zip file.
Extract the file onto bootable medium (floppy, CD-RW, network drive, etc.).
Boot the system to be updated to the medium where the update files were
unzipped to.
Run wdcfgupd.bat
The utility will proceed to update all the drives on that controller. This
process takes approximately 1 min. per drive.
Once the update completes, re-boot the system.
The update is complete.
Related Resources	
Technical information, FAQ, and related answers from the knowledge base
Upload Date	04/01/2004	


-DG

David G. Lawrence
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