I vote the promise controller. For some odd reasons I've always had issues with Promise and IDE HD's. The next time I do a cheap raid array I'll probably go 3Ware.

3 times in 3 years isn't good. I've had SCSI arrays with no issues for 4 years running.

Shouldn't the controller notify ya when an HD goes down or did it affect all HD's?

It is fairly common for IDE RAID arrays to fail. I have had two different machines with IDE RAID arrays on Promise controllers and both of them failed, one of them twice. I will never again use an IDE RAID. I have not tried a SCSI RAID, but most people that I have talked to have had few problems with SCSI arrays. I don't know anybody who has tried a SATA RAID, though my motherboard has it on board.

My SATA raid churns 5000+i/os 24/7.

Another possibility is the RAM, Do you have any way of testing it, such as a PII/III/K6 system? Got a lifetime warranty thankfully.

3ware != Cheap!!! My 3ware/WD-raptor raid was $3500
Next time you do any raid array go 3ware though. Not going 3ware is like a newly-lotto winning virgin going to thailand without any condoms.

Yeah, I'm definitely getting a 3ware if I don't use onboard for my next one (I probably won't use onboard, but I can't find any 64-bit PCI slots on non-server boards, and the 3ware stuff suffers on 32-bit PCI).

Here's the full low-down:

• I come home and switch on my computer monitors. They are sleeping. My computer is set to never sleep. This is bizarre.
• Couldn't get system to come back up by moving mouse/smacking keyboard. Reboot with reboot button.
• System reboots, BIOS reports array Critical. Panic.
• Run to work despite feeling very ill and pick up some hard drive for instant backup using an external enclosure to prevent drives from turning off.
• Back up essential data. Reboot system, still critical with channel 1 showing no connected drives.
• SHUT DOWN system and turn back on, still Critical, but o-ho, what's this? There's a drive on channel 1 again!
• Wait for drive to finish rebuilding. No problems. Array "Functional". SMART "Functional".
• Scour Google for various search terms containing various combinations of the words "sx4000" "false" "drive" "failure" "drop" "dropped" "off" "disappear" "reappear" "rebuild". Find very little other than some *nix person complaining about the same problem.
• Send email to Promise saying "WTF".

As an aside, what happened to me in 2002 (which ended up costing several thousand dollars to Ontrack Data Recovery -- who thinks 2 drives in a RAID are going to fail simultaneously? Not me! AND THEY DIDN'T! THE CARD FUCKED UP! (I'm still using those drives today.)) happened last week to a client of ours. They had a Promise SuperTrak SX6000. Drive #1 dropped off, reboot, Drive #3 dropped off. Same as the shit that happened to me in 2002. Fuckers. CLASS ACTION! There's clearly some shoddy engineering going on here. That kind of crap should NOT make it into production.

For the record, I checked the event logs for the thing, and there is no mention of anything other than "Array 1 Critical". No errors or anything. Just that warning.

What platform are you looking for? And why not get a server board?

My buddy wanted a decent rig, but wanted it small, so I pointed him to the Tyan Tiger MPX S2466N-4M
http://tyan.com/products/html/tigermpx.html
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp … -151-112&depa=0

fits in his mid tower and it has PCI-X.

too bad all socket 940's with PCI-X are EATX/SSI or larger. My Lian Li would have been too small for my board but it was remachined for vapor phase anyway.

The only other choice for regular ATX size and PCI-X are intel platforms.... Which I don't delve into.

Well, I hope you get your RAID back online. And get some steam out by writing nasty emails to promise 😜

I have the Tyan S2466N-4M it is a great work station board, but the 64 bit slots are only 66MHz. It has an AMD chipset and proven to be a very stable board. I was happy enough with it that it influenced my decision on my new board, another Tyan Tiger. My new Tiger K8W S2875 doesn't have the 64 bit slots, but I don't have any 64 bit cards anyway. Monarch Computer still has the S2466N-4M for $179.00. http://www.monarchcomputer.com/Merchant2/merc … egory_Code=ADMB

66mhz is perfect, because the 3ware raid cards run at 66mhz anyway. The only cards above 66mhz that I have actually seen have all been IHV's