Intel Rapid Storage technology failed me twice - huge data loss!!

Dimos · Nov 29, 2016

Hi, I wanted to point out that Intel Rapid Storage Technology failed me twice, resulting in data loss. First time was randomly and second time was after I upgraded BIOS. I got a notification that my RAID 0 (2x HDD) configuration failed and I had to re-create it. There was no option other than recreating it, so I lost lots of data. Both drives are 100% functional and the problem was clearly in the software. I am highly disappointed with this software and wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

PS: Before formatting the new RAID, I used a software to recover data and I saw all file names and sizes to appear correctly. However, when I tried to recover them, contents were corrupted: photos were showing a small part and the rest was noise, and videos were corrupted and wouldn't play (64KB size). Probably because with RAID-0 the file blocks are stripped among available storage volumes.

Thanks,
Dimos

RealBeast · Nov 29, 2016

IRST did not fail you. It is well known that motherboard based RAID is inherently unstable because any hiccup in the bios, as simple as a unanticipated power outage or bios update, will often break your array.

The wise move is to stop using it. If you really need RAID, then do it properly and buy a high quality controller. And RAID 0 is like holding a gun to your head with the hammer cocked, sooner or later you lose.

Dimos · Nov 29, 2016

RealBeast :

Well, from BIOS you can select to enable Rapid Storage, and I guess this is the actual problem. My actual intention was to get a hardware RAID controller, but when I saw RAID is available through BIOS I wanted to give it a shot. Motherboard based RAID are also known as "fake RAID" and are not recommended, as you said.

I configured RAID 0 for gaining performance to store basically multimedia, which can be downloaded again. Its not the end of the world if you loose multimedia.

I was also having some frustrating issues when installing Debian Linux on the Motherboard RAID. Finally, I will definitely get a hardware RAID controller to avoid such frustrations! Can you have a reliable RAID with 3 disks? For example the RAID that you both get performance and reliability.

Thanks,
Dimos

RealBeast · Nov 29, 2016

If you use 3 or more disks and have an independent controller (like an Adaptec or LSI), RAID 5 can be useful to improve performance while protecting you against the loss of one disk.

RAID 5 using a motherboard has almost as many problems as RAID 0 using the motherboard, so I would not recommend it. Better to use an NAS box using RAID 5 if you cannot add a controller to your motherboard (like if you have multiple video cards using all your long PCIe ports, as most RAID controllers require).

edit: as an example of speed, I transferred about 18TB of data between two RAID 5 arrays over a 10GbE connection with an average transfer rate of 770MB/s, and since 10GbE is faster that means that one of the arrays had a read or write limit -- probably the array being written -- of 770MB/s (IIRC 7 drive RAID 5).

Dimos · Nov 29, 2016

Thanks for your response, its really helpful! And 770MB/s is more than enough for me (probably I cannot achieve with only 3 disks).

So I decided to get something like this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816124028&cm_re=raid_controller-_-16-124-028-_-Product

And set up a RAID 5 array of 3 disks, after some research!
Never motherboard RAID again!

Thanks a lot, I would highly recommend tomshardware!

RealBeast · Nov 29, 2016

With three disks you would be looking at around 200-250MB/s reads. Believe it or not, one good place to read up on the basics of RAID is wiki.

edit: and you also may want to consider using a single large enterprise drive (for an additional level of protection) depending on your budget. Provantage.com sells the He8 8TB enterprise drive SATA version for only $334 per drive. In any event all data that is critical on either a RAID array or single drive should be backed up elsewhere.

Dimos · Nov 29, 2016

Yup, this is where I looked up right now to refresh my undergrad learnings of RAID!
But how come only 200-250MB/s reads? My single SSD has max read 510MB/s... I will be having 3x SSD.

RealBeast · Nov 29, 2016

We are talking about sequential large transfers and when you only read a portion of the file from each drive you get performance above the level of a single drive, which run just above 100MB/s for hard drives.

If I placed 3 or 4 SSDs on one of my Adaptec controllers, I would get transfer rates that would exceed the capacity of my 10GbE connection, which is around 900MB/s, again because each drive only contains a part of the data (it is striped across multiple drives).

RealBeast · Nov 29, 2016

Also, note that if you are trying to get faster SSD transfers, an NVMe based drive could make a lot more sense than using multiple SATA SSDs. Some get well over 2000 MB/s transfers since they connect over the PCIe connection and not a slow SATA connection.

Dimos · Nov 29, 2016

That is true, I would consider getting a single NVMe, M.2 or PCIe drive which are extremely fast! However, I also want to take advantage of my 2xSSD right now by getting a third one of the same type and make my RAID array reliable! Do you think the SSD model has to be exactly the same? I'm having issues finding the exact same model, since it is quite old. I have the Kingston SSDNow KC300 and I am thinking to get the V300, or something similar.

Dimos · Nov 29, 2016

What if I get for example the Kingston HyperX Savage, given that I already have 2x SSDNow KC300? The SSDNow is Flash memory and the HyperX NAND memory...

http://ssd.userbenchmark.com/SpeedTest/8366/KINGSTON-SKC300S37A240G

http://ssd.userbenchmark.com/HyperX-Savage-240GB/Rating/3494

RealBeast · Nov 29, 2016

You don't really get the user experience that the benchmarks might suggest by RAIDing SATA SSDs. Home users simply don't work at a high enough queue depth to benefit sufficiently.

On the other hand if you look at the performance of NVMe based SSDs, they hit very high IOPs at low queue levels and that is much more noticeable.

Dimos · Nov 29, 2016

And for the NVMe drives, according to this benchmark you get extremely high performance but terrible consistency:
http://ssd.userbenchmark.com/SpeedTest/182182/Samsung-SSD-960-PRO-512GB

Dimos · Nov 29, 2016

So do you recommend to use a 3rd SSD of different type but same size as the others? (NAND vs Flash.)

RealBeast · Nov 29, 2016

Dimos :

That is very likely an issue of thermal throttling, which has been an issue with M.2 drives without any kind of cooling. The faster and smaller they get, the worse the problem gets.

Dimos · Nov 29, 2016

My guess is that its more correct to have same type of hard drives in a RAID array. For example, given that I already have 2 Flash SSDs I would rather go for another Flash SSD (even slower model), rather than going for a NAND SSD. Does this make sense?

RealBeast · Nov 29, 2016

Dimos :

The general rule with RAID is that it is best to match devices, when I build HDD arrays I always use identical drives down to the same firmware version.

Dimos · Nov 29, 2016

RealBeast :

Got it, totally makes sense! I will, then get an identical SSD to finish up this RAID 5 array and maybe later make another one!
I guess we have to wait for the NVMe technology to get more reliable!

Dimos · Nov 30, 2016

By the way, I cannot find a true hardware RAID controller under $200... Most of the controllers I find require you to install a software (thus, not true hardware RAID controllers), or have terrible reviews.
I guess I will stick with Intel Rapid Storage Technology and have RAID 5 with 3 disks. And hope that no more than 1 disks will fail simultaneously!

RealBeast · Nov 30, 2016

IRST does not work that way, which is why in most cases RAIDed SSDs do not make sense.

Any bios issue with break the entire array. The real issue is not drive failure.

Dimos · Nov 30, 2016

RealBeast :

So there is no hope, even if I set it up as RAID 5? I was hoping that since there is parity stored, it can recompute the data if you insert another disk. But as you said if something is wrong with the BIOS maybe all disks will be messed up and require format.
I guess I will just have them as individual disks for now...
What RAID controllers do you have?

RealBeast · Nov 30, 2016

Dimos :

I would recommend using them as individual drives.

I have Adaptec cards in my home storage arrays (and also use them in my builds when needed), the two that I currently have for home storage and backup are the 6805 and 8805 (both are the 8 drive internal type card) but I only use them for mass storage so I use large HDDs, not SSDs. They are not cheap, but the cost of the drives is far more than the cards.

Dimos · Nov 30, 2016

RealBeast :

Nice, I saw the Adaptec for around $80 on ebay.
How about the Dell PERC H310?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA4GH4293239&ignorebbr=1&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleMKP-PC&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleMKP-PC-_-pla-_-Hard+Drive+Controllers+%2F+RAID+Cards-_-9SIA4GH4293239&gclid=CjwKEAiAjvrBBRDxm_nRusW3q1QSJAAzRI1tHZnWS38dWBWwYpCThToqt_FyTmQK0q9qDqYVKKNiURoCvvXw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

It says its true hardware RAID with 8 SAS ports 6 Gb/s and PCIe 2.0.

Can you convert SAS to SATA and preserve the speed of 6Gb/s?

Dimos · Nov 30, 2016

Also, can these RAID controllers generally support 2 independent RAID arrays, or you need 2 controllers? The Dell H310 does not support two independent RAID arrays on the same controller.

RealBeast · Dec 1, 2016

My Adapter controllers support multiple independent arrays (more than 2) depending of course on how many disks are in each array and if you use some kind of expanders or backplanes. I don't think that you need to be looking at more than one or two arrays for now. For example, in one build for a client I did a three SSD RAID 5 array and a separate 5 disk HDD RAID 5 array using an 8805. This gets pricey though, just the HDDs were several thousand dollars, but then that was for specific business needs.

Intel Rapid Storage technology failed me twice - huge data loss!!

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