P55M-UD2 - RAID 5 issues?

[Firestarter]

Hi all,

I just got a new system:

<<< System Summary >>>
  > Mainboard : P55M-UD2
  > Chipset : Intel P55
  > Processor : Intel Core i7 860 @ 2800 MHz
  > Physical Memory : 4096 MB (2 x 2048 DDR3-SDRAM )
  > Video Card : ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series
  > Hard Disk : Inkster (3001 GB) <---- RAID 5 made up of 4 x 1Gig (Western Digital) WDC WD10EADS
  > Hard Disk :  OCZ-VERTEX SCSI Disk Device (64 GB)
  > DVD-Rom Drive : HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GH22NS50 SCSI CdRom Device
  > Monitor Type : Samsung SyncMaster - 19 inches
  > Network Card :  RTL8168/8111 PCIe Gigabit Ethernet Adapter
  > Network Card :  AR5008 Wireless Network Adapter
  > Operating System : Windows 7 Home Premium Home Edition 6.01.7600  (x64)
  > DirectX : Version 11.00

Creating the RAID 5 was fine however one of the drives 'failed' after a day and I had to delete the RAID and test the drives individually to see if the drive was ok. (I used Western Digital Data LifeGuard Diagnostics - DLGDIAG for Windows for those that are curious).
In fact, I tested all the drives and they were all fine.

Then less than a week later, a different drive on a different port is now reporting to have 'failed' (or so the Intel Matrix Storage Controller is telling me).

I have a couple of questions.

1) Is anyone else having problems with the RAID functionality on this chipset and/or m/b?
2) I'm assuming if I update the BOIS (although I'm pretty sure it's up to date) the RAID will be lost?

I'm not convinced that yet another new drive has 'failed' so I'm leaning towards a bad driver or software.

 I've updated the chipset drivers already and I'm wondering about the GBB36X Controller driver - can't seem to find that...

[Beekeeper]

haven't heard about raid problems on this mobo.

the bios upgrade could be risky for data stored in your raid array. the best would be to make backup, then save the settings of your raid array (stripe size, etc). then after upgrading to the newest bios enter the same setting of raid array into the bios, then you have a chance the data won't be lost.

GBB36X Controller driver - it's gigabyte sata 2 chip which doesn't handel raid 5 so it can't be the reason of the problem as you have hdd's connected to intel chip.
you can simply disable it in bios setup (Onboard SATA/IDE Device under Integrated Peripherals).
or if you want to use it for some purposes then the driver is available via gigabyte website (it's called "GIGABYTE SATA2 Driver" for this mobo).

[Firestarter]

haven't heard about raid problems on this mobo.

the bios upgrade could be risky for data stored in your raid array. the best would be to make backup, then save the settings of your raid array (stripe size, etc). then after upgrading to the newest bios enter the same setting of raid array into the bios, then you have a chance the data won't be lost.

GBB36X Controller driver - it's gigabyte sata 2 chip which doesn't handel raid 5 so it can't be the reason of the problem as you have hdd's connected to intel chip.
you can simply disable it in bios setup (Onboard SATA/IDE Device under Integrated Peripherals).
or if you want to use it for some purposes then the driver is available via gigabyte website (it's called "GIGABYTE SATA2 Driver" for this mobo).

I'll try that out and let you know how it goes.

Thanks for the input! 

[UD6]

haven't heard about raid problems on this mobo.

the bios upgrade could be risky for data stored in your raid array. the best would be to make backup, then save the settings of your raid array (stripe size, etc). then after upgrading to the newest bios enter the same setting of raid array into the bios, then you have a chance the data won't be lost.

Can you please tell me why a BIOS upgrade is risky for the data stored in a raid array? Have raid and did this so many times without any problem. So what should be the problem and why?

[Beekeeper]

as i already wrote - the only risk is that sometimes stripe size / other raid settings maybe changed after bios upgrade.
my friend happened to have such problem and it took him a lot of time to find out the previous settings

[Firestarter]

Ok so upgrades to BIOS didn't seem to change anything.

I was able to tag the faulted drive as 'normal' though and then a rebuild ensured...unfortunately that takes over 24 hrs....

It was fine a few days and then a different drive was listed as faulty and again I can list the drive as 'normal' but again, the rebuilding is taking over 24 hrs....

very annoying 

[Peteruk]

Hi there is a Intel RAID driver issue that has been listed over at Intel that causes this problem:

http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/imsm/sb/CS-030818.htm
http://communities.intel.com/thread/5036?start=0&tstart=120

Matrix Storage Manager 8.8 will work fine in Windows 7 however its not supported by Intel.
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=17412&lang=eng
^ installing this will install and 8.8 drivers    

Matrix Storage Manager will soon be replaced by Rapid Storage Technology which you can get here at your own risk:
http://www.station-drivers.com/page/intel%20raid.htm
You install 9.5.0.1037 and manually update the driver to 9.5.4.1001 which is what I'm doing.

Hope that helps you and others with RAID problems.  

[Pottypete]

Hi,
Thanks for the info,
As you say it should help a few with raid problems,
good on you,
Cheers