Resolved Is my OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro failing already?

[alexreich]

I've had this drive maybe a week and I'm already seeing weird read/write spikes when performing tests. As you'll see in the picture below, there is a sudden drop in read speed. At that very moment, there is a 'clicking' sound coming out of the drive enclosure. I can validate this occurring many times during a 10 minute (1MB) test. Clicking sound, and then a drop.

What the hell is going on?!

Thanks for any help...
-Alex

 

[maflynn]

What's the smart status of the drive?

 

[alexreich]

As far as I know, SMART isn't supported on it.

The day I got the drive I checked the SMART status, and got a message something to the extent of, 'SMART not supported on this device'.

After unmounting the drive, turning off the power supply, then turning on the drive and re-mounting, I didn't hear the 'clicking' anymore. I'll have to do more read/write tests this afternoon, going to sleep now. It's 6:40AM here

 

[thaniel98]

I have several of these arrays, from my experience it sounds like you have a HD that is starting to fail. There is no smart status from these units, what kind of RAID setup it is in? I always run in RAID 5 or 10 and usually keep a spare HD just incase. Then using the spare drive I replace drive A, let it rebuild and then zero out the drive I removed. Once that is done I take that drive and replace the B drive with it and zero the B drive, I do this until I have gone through all the drives. In every case I have always found a drive that would fail to zero out and that has been the problem drive.

 

[alexreich]

Mine insn't a RAID Device.

My encslosure has a single 1TB 7200rpm HD. I would be extremely disappointed if it fails. I've had it maybe a week!

 

[philipma1957]

how do you have it hooked up?

fw800

fw400

usb2

esata?

The fact that is wavers in speed means nothing.

Lots of reasons for it.

The clicking I don't like.

Did you buy it from owc with an installed drive?



he thinks you had this 4 drive unit

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/hard-drives/RAID/Desktop/


I am thinking you have this one

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/MEAQ7S1TB32M/

or this one

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/MAU4S7S1TB32/

 

[alexreich]

I have the one from your second URL.

It came with a drive installed in it. It was ready to use when it arrived, and I use it via FW800 at all times.

 

[alexreich]

I'm calling them, I'll tell them about my experiences, and see if I need a replacement. Suprising that I would have to use a warranty on such a new product.

EDIT: They said that my situations like mine aren't uncommon. The Technical Service guy said that the drive was 'pulling' (Hitachi Dekstar drive apparently inside it) when it made the clicking sound. When it pulls (I assume to read the data it has written) all other activity on the drive quits until it catches up with itself. He told me copy all the media currently on the drive elsewhere, and then reformat the drive to Mac OS (non-journaled), and see if that helps.

So, I'm currently moving my files onto my internal hard drive, and about to format the external enclosure as he recommended. If I continue to have issues, I'll demand a replacement or a refund.