Greetings all,
After having two 1TB NAS failures, I have decided to build my own File Server based on Windows XP (Least common denominator). I have built many data centers in my past with SUN, HP, IBM, and other vendors. I have been lured by the prospect of using SATA II drives in RAID 5 at an affordable price with software level RAID.
I embarked on designing and building a system as a Media and FileServer for my home network. My home has a 3COM switchw ith 2 dedicated 1GB/s ports and 24 100MB/s ports. This provides a healthy backbone for file server operation.
So here is the system I designed and built:
Gigabyte EP45-UD3R (45 NorthBridge, ICH10R SouthBridge)
Intel QUAD core 2.8GHz processor
4 GB memory DDR2 1066Mhz
5 (500GB) Seagate 7,200RPM drives
While I realize this is way too much processing power for a Fileserver, I decided to double this and use it for powerful desktop functions and some gaming. Since it willbe chewing power on the network backplane.
The configuration was done to use SATA2, NCQ, and Intel's ICH10R capability of setting up the RAID-5 across the 5 drives. The drive was segmented into 100GB for OS and the remainder, close to 1.8TB, for storage. Intel Matrix Storage Manager 8.5 picked up the drive array, initialized the array, and everything worked great.
One small hiccup along the way was the fact that Write speed was bismal! It was really horrible and give me a bad feel in my stomach as I was getting at best 5MB/S write speed! After much research, I found that my cache write-back flag was turned off. Turning this on gave me close to 80MB/S which was very nice. Read on Raid5 as you know is amazine as-is with very little optimization required.
Now to the problem, my rig worked wonderful for about 1 month in a 24x7 mode with no problems. Then the Blue Screens of Death on Windows XP started occuring. I have done the basic debugging and found the following types of failures:
Module - Error
-------------------
nt - DRIVER_FAULT
nt - DRIVER_FAULT memory_corruption
iaStor.sys - DRIVER_FAULT iaStor.sys
nt - DRIVER_FAULT memory_corruption
vax347b - COMMON_SYSTEM_FAULT Vax347b.sys
nt - COMMON_SYSTEM_FAULT memory_corruption
nt - COMMON_SYSTEM_FAULT ntkrpamp.exe
Vax347b COMMON_SYSTEM_FAULT Vax347b.sys
ntfs NULL_CLASS_PTR_DEREFERENCE ntfs.sys
nt COMMON_SYSTEM_FAULT ntkrpamp.exe
nt COMMON_SYSTEM_FAULT memory_corruption
intelppm COMMON_SYSTEM_FAULT intelppm.sys
nt COMMON_SYSTEM_FAULT memory_corruption
sr DRIVER_FAULT
To try and mitigate this from happening, I have started XP with the last working config. I know without a doubt that the ICH10R and the Storage Manager are the root cause of this. I was able to upgrade the driver to Storage Manager 8.8 and get the array back in working order (rebuild on XP). Interstengly I experienced no data loss (thumbs up for RAID5).
The system worked for about 1 week and then the crashes started again. The uptime ranges from minutes to a couple of hours before the crash occurs.
Now I am at a loss and not sure how to proceed. I would like to try to fix the problem because I was very happy with the performance of the box, even for intense gaming. If I can't find a solution I am thinking of turning my attention towards a Raid controller and give Software level RAID the thumbs down.
Any assistance with my problem would be greatly appreciated.
Regards.
After having two 1TB NAS failures, I have decided to build my own File Server based on Windows XP (Least common denominator). I have built many data centers in my past with SUN, HP, IBM, and other vendors. I have been lured by the prospect of using SATA II drives in RAID 5 at an affordable price with software level RAID.
I embarked on designing and building a system as a Media and FileServer for my home network. My home has a 3COM switchw ith 2 dedicated 1GB/s ports and 24 100MB/s ports. This provides a healthy backbone for file server operation.
So here is the system I designed and built:
Gigabyte EP45-UD3R (45 NorthBridge, ICH10R SouthBridge)
Intel QUAD core 2.8GHz processor
4 GB memory DDR2 1066Mhz
5 (500GB) Seagate 7,200RPM drives
While I realize this is way too much processing power for a Fileserver, I decided to double this and use it for powerful desktop functions and some gaming. Since it willbe chewing power on the network backplane.
The configuration was done to use SATA2, NCQ, and Intel's ICH10R capability of setting up the RAID-5 across the 5 drives. The drive was segmented into 100GB for OS and the remainder, close to 1.8TB, for storage. Intel Matrix Storage Manager 8.5 picked up the drive array, initialized the array, and everything worked great.
One small hiccup along the way was the fact that Write speed was bismal! It was really horrible and give me a bad feel in my stomach as I was getting at best 5MB/S write speed! After much research, I found that my cache write-back flag was turned off. Turning this on gave me close to 80MB/S which was very nice. Read on Raid5 as you know is amazine as-is with very little optimization required.
Now to the problem, my rig worked wonderful for about 1 month in a 24x7 mode with no problems. Then the Blue Screens of Death on Windows XP started occuring. I have done the basic debugging and found the following types of failures:
Module - Error
-------------------
nt - DRIVER_FAULT
nt - DRIVER_FAULT memory_corruption
iaStor.sys - DRIVER_FAULT iaStor.sys
nt - DRIVER_FAULT memory_corruption
vax347b - COMMON_SYSTEM_FAULT Vax347b.sys
nt - COMMON_SYSTEM_FAULT memory_corruption
nt - COMMON_SYSTEM_FAULT ntkrpamp.exe
Vax347b COMMON_SYSTEM_FAULT Vax347b.sys
ntfs NULL_CLASS_PTR_DEREFERENCE ntfs.sys
nt COMMON_SYSTEM_FAULT ntkrpamp.exe
nt COMMON_SYSTEM_FAULT memory_corruption
intelppm COMMON_SYSTEM_FAULT intelppm.sys
nt COMMON_SYSTEM_FAULT memory_corruption
sr DRIVER_FAULT
To try and mitigate this from happening, I have started XP with the last working config. I know without a doubt that the ICH10R and the Storage Manager are the root cause of this. I was able to upgrade the driver to Storage Manager 8.8 and get the array back in working order (rebuild on XP). Interstengly I experienced no data loss (thumbs up for RAID5).
The system worked for about 1 week and then the crashes started again. The uptime ranges from minutes to a couple of hours before the crash occurs.
Now I am at a loss and not sure how to proceed. I would like to try to fix the problem because I was very happy with the performance of the box, even for intense gaming. If I can't find a solution I am thinking of turning my attention towards a Raid controller and give Software level RAID the thumbs down.
Any assistance with my problem would be greatly appreciated.
Regards.