No Hassle RAID 5 Implementations?

LambSpam asks: "I had a nightmare week (last week) with two of our servers running Intel's U3-1L RAID controller (RAID 5). Whenever there's a power outage in our building these controllers randomly mark one or more of the drives in the array offline (even with adequate UPS support), which means I have to manually mark them online and/or rebuild. Intel acknowledged the problem, but their solution involves updating the backplane's firmware, the controller firmware (destructive upgrade!), and even the firmware on our IBM drives in the array because they 'draw too much power' in certain conditions. I've only used one other RAID 5 implementation (MegaRAID), and it NEVER had these kinds of problems, whereas if you sneeze too hard around this U3-1L card it will go offline. Is this common with most hardware RAID implementations? What RAID 5 implementations works without hassle? What should I stay away from?"

IBM HDs

[Anonymous Coward]

I've also had performance problems with IBM drives in RAID 0/1, and especially RAID 5 setups. I contacted IBM tech support to see if any of the settings could be tweaked, but the response was the drives are not RAID optimized. I switched to Seagate drives, and subjectively I would say the performance quadrupled under heavy load.

Tried Adaptec?

[Judg3]

Were I used to work (An all-windows shop) we used Adaptec [adaptec.com] RAID cards in all our "tower" based servers. Even the lower priced models (AAA-131U2) always performed without a hitch and we never had any problems with them at all. AMI's RAID controllers are real nice and all, but for the price it just wasn't worth it. The Adaptec solutions performed just as well and at a lower cost. You'd do good to check em out.

Now the 3200 RAID Controllers int he Compaq's, thats another diffrent story altogether.
We had roughly 2000 servers, operating 24/7 @ 67 degrees F. Two times a year we had a site shutdown. Every single time we had to bring everything back up we would have anywhere from 3-5 Compaq array controllers die. But never once did the low-buck Adaptecs crap out on us.

Firmware

[Holophax]

Just as a shot in the dark, I would suggest trying to upgrade the firmware on the drives first. At one of my old jobs, we used nothing but IBM drives, and we constantly had problems with the drives becoming marked as bad or off line, but simply pulling them and plugging them back in (hot swap) would bring them back. In our situation, we were using IBM Netfinity servers with IBM raid controllers. When we talked to IBM, they admitted there was a problem with the firmware on the drivers which would cause the drive to not spit out just one error whenever an event (even a simple read error) happened, but to spew them constantly, which made the raid controller mark the drive as bad. Seeing as it only takes a few minutes of downtime and is non-destructive, it might be worth a shot.

IBM ServeRaid

[decep]

I have built serveral RAID configuration with IBM ServeRAID cotrollers. One RAID5 array (16 drives, 1 hot spare) that I've managed has had 2 drives fail in the past year; the only thing I've had to do is take the bad drive out, pop another one in and it is automatically marked as a hot spare.

I was expecting a hassle, but it was mind-blowing to see how easy it was. The cross-platform remote management utility is a plus too.

Re:Two possibilities...

[RatOmeter]

"First, are you sure your UPS is a *TRUE* UPS?"

The term you're looking for here is "On-line UPS". There are two basic varieties of UPS, switched and on-line. Both share the following common features: The AC (mains) power coming into the UPS is rectified (converted to DC, usually in the range of 24 to 48 VDC). The DC is used to charge the batteries which are the source for backup power when the mains fails. AC backup power is supplied to your equipment by an invertor (DC to AC convertor) in the UPS which takes the battery's DC juice and "builds" a 50 or 60 Hz AC sine or pseudo sine wave at the right voltage.

Switched UPS: When the AC mains is OK, your equipment is being powered by it. When the mains fails, the UPS literally switches to backup power from the invertor. This switching takes a measureable amount of time to complete and relies on your equipment's electronics to ride-through the loss of power until the switch to invertor power is complete. Advantage? Switched UPS's are generally less expensive.

Online UPS: Regardless of whether the mains power is OK or not, the UPS's invertor is already on and already supplying your equipment. When the AC mains does fail (momentary loss, glitch, blackout or brownout), it takes zero time to switch to UPS power, because your equipment was already on UPS power! Advantages? (1) Zero switching time, (2) the online UPS will feed a constant, glitch-free sine wave to your equipment at the right frequency, the right RMS voltage all the time .

-

Re:Tried Adaptec?

[Sivar]

The general consensus on StorageReview.com (a site that I would trust for anything storage related) is that Adaptec cards are crap, the performance under load is mediocre, they tend to die (despite being a solid-state device) and that often times the non-windows drivers aren't the best.
Don't take it from me, ask around there. If they worked for you, however, great. Whatever works.

Clarification

[Futurepower(tm)]

Everything needs to be on the same Ground circuit. It is necessary to avoid ground loops.

"They draw LARGE spikes of current sporadically."

I don't think this is correct. I have designed power supplies, and I don't immediately think of any reason why the power input of a switching power supply should vary differently from the power output. The only surge is when the hard disks spin up, but with SCSI there is a means to stagger the spin-up.