A question for Jeremy G on your ATTO R380

[Jeremy Garchow]

No worries.

[Bob Zelin] “Are you still 100% happy with your card?”

Yes.

[Bob Zelin] “Have you had a drive failure with it yet ? “

I have not.

[Bob Zelin] “Does your R380 have an alarm upon failure, or is it just an email notification ?”

My current version of the drivers only have an email notification. There are new drivers/firmware floating around out there that supposedly bring an audible alarm. There’s no way I’d update the drivers right now unless I could completely wipe and rebuild the array.

[Bob Zelin] “Heat issues ?”

No, but the computer and array is right in front of an a/c unit in a tiny little machine room

[Bob Zelin] “Have you upgraded yet to OS-X 10.5.6 ? “

Not on on that computer although there are supposed issues with it. I have heard that downloading and installing the 10.5.6 combo update will solve some problems.

Having issues with it?

Jeremy

[Bob Zelin]

I am just looking at the R380 again. I know it’s a great card, but it’s had issues – particularly user interface, and notification of a failed drive. But AVID is using it, Sonnet is using it, and I don’t want to be blind to a great product. I am still a big Areca fan (and Cal Digit is great too – can’t fault the Cal Digit RAID card), but I am going to re evaluate the R380.

Bob Zelin

[Jeremy Garchow]

Got ya. If you’re starting from scratch, you will defintely want to check out the new firmware and software updates. You can no do RAID6 as well, if that’s any interest to you/your customers.

It’s been fine for me, but I’m just one guy.

[Simon Blackledge]

Never had any issues with R380. Not heat.. nothing.

ATTO support as I’m sure you know is top notch.

s

[Bob Zelin]

ok simon,
what is your proceedure when a drive fails. Do you have yours setup for email notification, or audio beeper alarm. You you have it setup for hot spare, or auto rebuild upon putting in a replacement upon failure. Exactly how did you configure your array ?

bob Zelin

[Simon Blackledge]

I’ll check when I get in Bob. Although I have never had a drive fail since install 16 months ago. So don’t actually know if it works :-/

I have always updated the firmware drivers without issue if following the correct procedure.. unhook drives etc.

One error that may now be gone that I had with the initial firmware was if you do a software update (sometimes) or use SuperDuper to clone the OSX install for a failover disk then the raid gets messed up so we turn it off and disconnect before the above.

Simon

[Jeremy Garchow]

I should mention, Bob, back when I first got the r380 I was testing it out for an article. I set the raid to capture Uncompressed Hd and then physically pulled a drive while it was capturing (something I wouldn’t tell anyone to do. Please kids, don’t try this at home/home office/office) I got an email notification, shoved the drive back in and waited for it to rebuild. As you know, this process does take a while (it took a little over 3 hours if I remember correctly) but at least the data is safe.

If you care to, let us know how the new drivers and firmware go.

Jeremy

[Bob Zelin]

well, this is an important statement.

you write –
I set the raid to capture Uncompressed Hd and then physically pulled a drive while it was capturing (something I wouldn’t tell anyone to do. Please kids, don’t try this at home/home office/office) I got an email notification, shoved the drive back in and waited for it to rebuild.

REPLY – when I tried it a long time go, there was no auto rebuild (like on other products) unless you setup a hot spare (wasting a drive), and the rebuild process (if you didn’t assign a hot spare) was a manual process. I did the same thing you did (pull out a drive), and it did NOT auto rebuild – it just sat there. I called ATTO at the time, and was told that you had to go into a bunch of menus to start the rebuild process. I am hoping that this has changed.

bob Zelin

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Bob Zelin] “I am hoping that this has changed. “

Got ya. SInce I pulled the drive out, I knew which one failed so all I had to do was rebuild it. If you don’t have that luxury, you have to go in to the ATTO Config Utility to find the bad drive and start the rebuild process there. I didn’t have a hot spare either as it wastes a drive like you said. You can get the R380 to light up the proper failed drive LED. This is a Sonnet D800RAID enclosure though and I’m not sure if other enclosures work the same.

Feliz Navidad Eve!

Jeremy

[Doug Beal]

I have a Sonnet Fusion D800 with R380 controller. I have had 1 drive fail twice (Status = Degraded)
I do have to go in to Atto config manager and select rebuild. This system has been running 24/7 about 60% of the time for the past year. I have never lost DATA. It’s set up for Raid 5. I do not have email notification nor audible alarms set. I do have it announce to finder when there is an issue. If I don’t allow enough spin up time, before I boot the macpro it issues a warning. I click OK and continue. I did operate for about 5 weeks with 1 drive not operating capturing/editing uncompressed HD 1080i and 1080 23.98Psf.
I was terrified the entire time but could not stop to rebuild. Never had an issue other than render errors. Never had dropped frames on output or capture. I’m hoping there may be a way to integrate this older array with the newer DX800 to facilitate adding more local storage.
I would highly recommend this unit. There is NOT an update to run this card in PCIe V2 slots yet for a windows box, not sure re Slot2 on the new macpros

Doug Beal
Editor / Engineer
Rock Creative Images
Nashville TN