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Intel Gen2 SSD - Disk errors - AGAIN!!!!!!!
- Thread starter dubaimac
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You could also try:
A fresh OS X installation (make sure you've the latest drivers when you install those).
Try changing the HDD Cache Setting to Enabled
Beyond that, and the SATA 150 setting cutterman suggested, you'd have to pull the drives and test them individually on the card and ICH to determine if the disks or the card are the problem as he mentioned (you may be stuck doing an RMA somewhere
).
Good luck, and keep us posted if you would.
A fresh OS X installation (make sure you've the latest drivers when you install those).
Try changing the HDD Cache Setting to Enabled
Beyond that, and the SATA 150 setting cutterman suggested, you'd have to pull the drives and test them individually on the card and ICH to determine if the disks or the card are the problem as he mentioned (you may be stuck doing an RMA somewhere
).Good luck, and keep us posted if you would.
Thanks to both of you for the advise. I'm currently testing the setup that I have shown in the screen shot. Before I had cache on both read and write and had 300+NCQ. THat did not work and I have to see what the changes will do. If I keep having crashes I will try your advise. I'll keep you posted what is happening.
I had another crash again today. I installed Snow Leopard from scratch and checked that all rights were properly set. I'm now testing if this installation is stable. If it crashes again I will run the OS from one SSD with the ARC 1210 without Raid0.
I'm ticking the boxes one by one now. First is a clean installation which is currently under test. After that I will test individual SSD with and without the Areca Raid card. If that is inconclusive I will reduce the speed to 150.
Assuming all of this fails, then you have to try it on the ICH (see if the disk is the problem), and repeat with the other drive. Not really "time friendly" I'm sad to say.
But it is thorough.
Hi nano! I don't think the SSDs are at fault, but as I said I will test them individually with the Arc1210 and directly on one of the four hard drive points. Can you confirm that my Areca settings are basically ok?
From what's posted on the screen shot, Yes.
But if you've any more (not listed, as other models have multiple pages), or have since made changes, please post them so I can take a look. Even a good description would suffice, as it doesn't have to be screen shots (whatever's easiest for you).
This is pretty much all I find. I'm running 10.6.4 with a clean install now. At the moment it seems to be pretty stable, but I often had crashes after some days when I started to do something important like doing a Windows backup with Winclone. Windows btw is running nicely with AHCI but with HFS drivers disabled. When I clone the OS X on a HDD I have no crashes at all.
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No McDrive but I have the Paragon NTFS driver active. The Apple HTF and MNT drivers in Windows are disabled. The MBR of the Windows drive is patched for AHCI.
At the moment all is stable.
At the moment all is stable.
I hope it stays that way (I suspect the problem was software, not hardware).
Keeping my fingers crossed.
MacDrive has been ruinous for me on external drives. I won't touch it ever again.
You're not the only one IIRC, and is why I mentioned it.
Not sure about Paragon (never used it, nor do I recall any other RAID users reporting one way or the other), but it's possible. They're similar applications afterall....
It looks like too many clones were done on the system before. A clean install solved the problem. Since then I have removed the RAID card because it prevents my MP4.1 to sleep. The operating systems now run on 160GB Intel Gen2 SSDs. One is on the second optical drive SATA point and one is on the first HDD point.
Glad you got it sorted.
BTW, are you still wanting to have a striped set for Windows?
If so, you could use the ARC-1210 for that, and it should sleep under Windows 7 (may be worth an experiment).
We have been through this, do you remember? It was my initial idea to boot Windows from the ARC1210. Unfortunately neither the BIOS nor the EFI version of the Areca firmware allows you to do this in an acceptable way. I will not accept anything that will not integrate into the MacPro dual boot firmware. Windows will not do that with any Areca made card firmware.
At this point Areca simply have no product that satisfies my requirements. I need those RAID card ports to work seamlessly like standard SATA ports with full boot and sleep capability. I'm not getting this for OS X or Windows either. It is rather disappointing, but Areca do not seem to be interested to do something useful for Mac owners. Their last Mac Firmware is almost two years old and there is no sign that they intend to improve it any time soon.
I didn't recall that there was a firmware issue with that card and booting Windows on the MP.
Wonder what's going on (thinking it may be with that particular model, as it's one of the older ones)?
I say this, as the BIOS version should work for booting Windows or Linux (why simple SATA/eSATA cards can boot Windows or Linux, and I don't recall any issues with the models I tried with a 2008; ARC-1231ML and ARC-1680ix12). I recall others getting the 1680 series to work as well (dedicated Linux and/or Windows users - no copy of OS X installed on the MP).
You cannot properly dual boot with Areca firmware. The Bios firmware is for Bios machines and does not work with Mac EFI. When you use the EFI firmware the Windows install disk will not even recognize the drives. According to Areca engineers the card is simply not designed to work with Bootcamp. I guess that Areca would get some stick from Microsoft if they designed their firmware in a way that you can use the card ports to boot Windows.
I'm not talking about dual booting via Boot Camp. If you recall, I also told you that.
What I'm referring to, is using the ARC-1210 for Windows only, as you've the OS X array/disk on the ICH now (not sure if you've the SSD
's separate, or in a software set; but you still have to skip Boot Camp, which means sacrificing CCC/Super Duper for clones/backups).
That's why I mentioned using separate backup software for the Windows array (Acronis True Image Home 2011 is the latest; should be able to find it for less than MSRP). Or you can try the included backup software if you're running Win7 Professional or Ultimate.
Sorry about any confusion, as I presumed you remembered that Boot Camp and RAID do not work together (even under an array created by Disk Utility).
The only card that worked with Boot Camp, was CalDigit's card, but it's not worth the aggravation, nor would it be compatible with your system without the HDD adapter kit from MaxUpgrades (or the one available from Trans Int'l).If you want each array on a card, you'd need 2 separate cards and drives (one card loaded with EFI for booting OS X, the other BIOS, which would be able to boot Windows and/or Linux). This particular route is a PITA (which includes expensive), but it's the only way to do this in a MP.
I'm not talking about dual booting via Boot Camp. If you recall, I also told you that.
What I'm referring to, is using the ARC-1210 for Windows only, as you've the OS X array/disk on the ICH now (not sure if you've the SSD
's separate, or in a software set; but you still have to skip Boot Camp, which means sacrificing CCC/Super Duper for clones/backups).
That's why I mentioned using separate backup software for the Windows array (Acronis True Image Home 2011 is the latest; should be able to find it for less than MSRP). Or you can try the included backup software if you're running Win7 Professional or Ultimate.
Sorry about any confusion, as I presumed you remembered that Boot Camp and RAID do not work together (even under an array created by Disk Utility).
If you want each array on a card, you'd need 2 separate cards and drives (one card loaded with EFI for booting OS X, the other BIOS, which would be able to boot Windows and/or Linux). This particular route is a PITA (which includes expensive), but it's the only way to do this in a MP.
It is not an issue of Bootcamp. Bootcamp is only a utility to partition drives and it can be used to partition a complete SSD or HDD for Windows. That isn't the issue. The Areca firmware is the issue here. If you use the Areca Bios in an EFI machine like the MacPro you cannot properly install Windows and if you fake it and install it in a Bios machine and transfer it you cannot properly boot. I have tested all the imaginable variances.
YOU CANNOT BOOT WINDOWS FROM AN ARECA CARD PORT IN A MAC PRO!!!!!!
Did you try it in a 2008 model?
I don't doubt that this could be the case on the newer systems (Foxconn afterall...). But I seem to recall dedicated Windows and Linux using the ARC-1680 series on 2008 models (booting off of the array, as well as single boot disks per OS attached to the ICH). It's here in MR somewhere (~2yrs ago I think). But the boards are different ('08 v. '09/10), as is the firmware (my stronger suspicion). Either being a possiblity as to why it could work on system A, and not B.
As per Boot Camp, the GPT partitioning scheme wouldn't work on the RAID card (i.e. offset conflicts), even if you didn't have a problem booting your card on the MP with BIOS.