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Sonnet ExpressSAS RAID Problem
ello, I am new here and heard this would be a good place to help solve some of my issues with my external RAID.
The drive become unresponsive about 2 weeks ago, the company replaced the ATTO card and the enclosure, both of which did not fix the problem.
Here is a link to the image of the error I have been receiving through the ATTO card’s control panel:
So we’ve come to the conclusion that it’s the drives faulting and not the hardware (enclosure, computer etc)
My biggest concern is that I will be losing very important that have not been backed up yet (the irony is that our scheduled back up was the day the drive crashed – go figure) like FCP project files, P2 Data and so on.
If anyone can post any tips, help or ideas on what might help fix the drives, I would be forever grateful, thanks guys!
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20 Replies
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Just curious what Sonnet has had to say so far? Have they offered any solutions? Usually it’s best to go directly to the manufacturer first so you can walk them through your issues. Sonnet generally has very good tech support so I would definitely call them first.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
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Yes, I have been in direct contact with Sonnet (the manufacturer) and the reseller we bought it from. Both parties are just as confused as I am and have offered their advice, nothing of which has solved my issue currently.
I am still trying to work with them, though I thought I might try the collective brain power of creative cow to help better my odds of saving my data 🙂
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Adam,
I have experienced similar problems with our Sonnet E-SATA drives (on two suites)….. I’ll cut a very long story short. Both Sonnet and our suppliers Holdan (UK) have been very pro-active in attempting to correct the issues.
The problem was traced to a Heat issue with the ATTO raid cards. As a temporary measure we ran the smc fan control utility with the fan controls cranked up fairly high to keep temperatures down. This worked and stopped the drives dropping out / becoming degraded.
https://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/23049 for the smc fan control
We recently received replacement ATTO cards which are ‘latest – heat tested versions’. Two weeks ago we switched off the fan control and although our workload has been light – so far, so good.
When a single drive became degraded – I took it out of the enclosure and then re-seated it, then rebuilt the RAID. (RAID 5)
We did however have one suite with both degraded and one unavailable – which caused me to sweat a little. Upon re-seating all the drives in the bay – the unavailable drive re-appeared and then I followed the same procedure to rebuild the array.
I hope that this helps in some way. However if those drives don’t come back then the outlook for that data is rather dire I’m afraid.
As a matter of interest – what kind of mac are you running?
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Hey thanks so much for the response, sounds like you and I are/were experience very similar problems indeed.
We did already replace the ATTO card with the newer heatsink but I am looking at the links you supplied to see if they help.
I am running a Mac Pro 2 x 3 GHz Quad Core Intel Xenon with 16 GBs RAM
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I couldn’t see your screen shot, but what drives show up in the ATTO utility?
-Russ
Russell Lasson
Kaleidoscope Pictures
Provo, UT -
Here is the direct link:
https://img507.imageshack.us/img507/1919/screenshotub6.jpg
If that doesn’t work here is the basic rundown:
Drives # 2,3,5,6,7,8 are shown under ‘Attached Drives’
under that under the tab ‘SonnetGroup’ is shows that Drives 1 and 4 are ‘Unavailable’ and Drive 6 is ‘Degraded’
Hope that helps.
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I would try to figure out which drives 1 and 4 are and then try to see if they even spin up if you put them in an external enclosure. They won’t mount on you desktop, but you should be able to see them from disk utility.
I’d first contact ATTO to see if taking the drives out of the RAID and connecting them to OS X directly might interfere with the RAID info on the drive.
It’s not fun, but good luck!
-Russ
Russell Lasson
Kaleidoscope Pictures
Provo, UT -
This is a common problem with many SATA RAID controllers. Certain makes and models of disks will mysteriously lose sync and disappear.
It’s Sonnet’s responsibility, but if you’re desperate and impatient, it may be worth calling Seagate and seeing if there is a firmware update for the ST3750640NS model. And if there is, let Sonnet know about it and ask them how to proceed.
Sean
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Other things worth checking that we changed / checked were………
The type of drives in the array – originally I was supplied with Western Digital – and these didn’t work at all – we now have Seagate Barracudas.
Flash on the ATTO card. What date of Flash do you have on your ATTO?
Any joy with remounting the unavailable drives?
I’ll check anything else we worked on when I get into work….
Mark
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Did you buy the drives yourself? Where did the drives come from?
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