SATA RAID 2 with AMCC 9950 SE SATA 2 Conroller in x64

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Jim

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I just made an interesting discovery, after *two years* with my Maxim
PC "Dream Machine Plus." I had built an x64 dream server with a Tyan
K8WE (S2895) motherboard, Dual Opteron 270s (all I could afford at the
time), 8 GB of memory, a *brand new, latest and greatest AMCC 3ware
9950 SE RAID controller, and four new Hitachi drives. This RAID
controller was one of the first RAID controllers on the market to
support SATA 2 naively.

At the time I originally installed the drives.I called Hitachi Global
Technologies technical support to make certain that the drives were
configured to run in SATA 2 mode. I was assured that they shipped as
SATA 2 drives. I proceeded to set up a RAID 5 array.

I had always had difficult with finding all four drives powering up
properly at boot, and I often had to rebuild my array. As I had a PC
Power & Cooling 1 KW power supply, I knew that power was *not* my
problem.

I just recently learned, by using the log on the controller, that the
drives were all running in SATA I mode. Hitachi had been *wrong.* I
had to use the "Hitachi Feature Tool" to individually change a setting
in *each* of the four drives to set them for SATA II. I was a bit
angry that (a) Hitachi had misled me and (b) it took me so long to
find out.

I am posting to this forum because other users may be unaware that
their "SATA 2" drives are actually running at SATA 1. Unless one
changes a setting in the drive's BIOS, the drive remains SATA 1.

Perhaps there is an easy way to know the SATA setting of the drive,
via some sort of Windows utility; but I did not know of one. In the
future I will always check in advance.

Jim
 
Re: SATA RAID 2 with AMCC 9950 SE SATA 2 Conroller in x64

Hmm, interesting!

You could try two usually quite revealing utitlities and see what they have
to say:

http://www.gtopala.com/

where you'll find SIW.

and

http://www.snapfiles.com/get/aida32.html

for AIDA32. I insert this link since the original site apparently is closed,
and the author gone working for another company. No matter, the program is
excellent!


Tony. . .



"Jim" <jmegas@cal.berkeley.edu> wrote in message
news:73d46728-e987-4b4a-992a-0805ec04d00a@l42g2000hsc.googlegroups.com...
> I just made an interesting discovery, after *two years* with my Maxim
> PC "Dream Machine Plus." I had built an x64 dream server with a Tyan
> K8WE (S2895) motherboard, Dual Opteron 270s (all I could afford at the
> time), 8 GB of memory, a *brand new, latest and greatest AMCC 3ware
> 9950 SE RAID controller, and four new Hitachi drives. This RAID
> controller was one of the first RAID controllers on the market to
> support SATA 2 naively.
>
> At the time I originally installed the drives.I called Hitachi Global
> Technologies technical support to make certain that the drives were
> configured to run in SATA 2 mode. I was assured that they shipped as
> SATA 2 drives. I proceeded to set up a RAID 5 array.
>
> I had always had difficult with finding all four drives powering up
> properly at boot, and I often had to rebuild my array. As I had a PC
> Power & Cooling 1 KW power supply, I knew that power was *not* my
> problem.
>
> I just recently learned, by using the log on the controller, that the
> drives were all running in SATA I mode. Hitachi had been *wrong.* I
> had to use the "Hitachi Feature Tool" to individually change a setting
> in *each* of the four drives to set them for SATA II. I was a bit
> angry that (a) Hitachi had misled me and (b) it took me so long to
> find out.
>
> I am posting to this forum because other users may be unaware that
> their "SATA 2" drives are actually running at SATA 1. Unless one
> changes a setting in the drive's BIOS, the drive remains SATA 1.
>
> Perhaps there is an easy way to know the SATA setting of the drive,
> via some sort of Windows utility; but I did not know of one. In the
> future I will always check in advance.
>
> Jim
 
Re: SATA RAID 2 with AMCC 9950 SE SATA 2 Conroller in x64

I don't think SIW tells you whether a SATA drive is
functioning at the SATA I level or the SATA II level. The
only method I have ever seen for this information was the
utilities from the specific manufacturer to view the drive's
firmware and change the state if necessary.

I do remember in the recent past that the SATA II drives
were being shipped in the SATA I mode because a few
chipsets, like VIA, were not compatible with the SATA II
mode, so you had to use their utility to change it to the
SATA II mode.

I prefer the ones with jumper pins you can short if you need
SATA I.




Tony Sperling wrote:
> Hmm, interesting!
>
> You could try two usually quite revealing utitlities and see what they have
> to say:
>
> http://www.gtopala.com/
>
> where you'll find SIW.
>
> and
>
> http://www.snapfiles.com/get/aida32.html
>
> for AIDA32. I insert this link since the original site apparently is closed,
> and the author gone working for another company. No matter, the program is
> excellent!
>
>
> Tony. . .
>
>
>
> "Jim" <jmegas@cal.berkeley.edu> wrote in message
> news:73d46728-e987-4b4a-992a-0805ec04d00a@l42g2000hsc.googlegroups.com...
>> I just made an interesting discovery, after *two years* with my Maxim
>> PC "Dream Machine Plus." I had built an x64 dream server with a Tyan
>> K8WE (S2895) motherboard, Dual Opteron 270s (all I could afford at the
>> time), 8 GB of memory, a *brand new, latest and greatest AMCC 3ware
>> 9950 SE RAID controller, and four new Hitachi drives. This RAID
>> controller was one of the first RAID controllers on the market to
>> support SATA 2 naively.
>>
>> At the time I originally installed the drives.I called Hitachi Global
>> Technologies technical support to make certain that the drives were
>> configured to run in SATA 2 mode. I was assured that they shipped as
>> SATA 2 drives. I proceeded to set up a RAID 5 array.
>>
>> I had always had difficult with finding all four drives powering up
>> properly at boot, and I often had to rebuild my array. As I had a PC
>> Power & Cooling 1 KW power supply, I knew that power was *not* my
>> problem.
>>
>> I just recently learned, by using the log on the controller, that the
>> drives were all running in SATA I mode. Hitachi had been *wrong.* I
>> had to use the "Hitachi Feature Tool" to individually change a setting
>> in *each* of the four drives to set them for SATA II. I was a bit
>> angry that (a) Hitachi had misled me and (b) it took me so long to
>> find out.
>>
>> I am posting to this forum because other users may be unaware that
>> their "SATA 2" drives are actually running at SATA 1. Unless one
>> changes a setting in the drive's BIOS, the drive remains SATA 1.
>>
>> Perhaps there is an easy way to know the SATA setting of the drive,
>> via some sort of Windows utility; but I did not know of one. In the
>> future I will always check in advance.
>>
>> Jim
>
>
 
Re: SATA RAID 2 with AMCC 9950 SE SATA 2 Conroller in x64

You are probably right, there. We all hate it when something defaults to
something we don't use - if you set a default, though, it has got to be the
logical thing to set it to the lowest common denominator.


Tony. . .
 
Re: SATA RAID 2 with AMCC 9950 SE SATA 2 Conroller in x64

Samsung drives have a jumper you change to set to SATA I or SATA II mode. (I
use a lot of Samsung drives because they're quiet.)

--
Charlie.
http://msmvps.com/xperts64
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/charlie.russel


"Theo" <theo@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:ehTmY$vmIHA.4504@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
>I don't think SIW tells you whether a SATA drive is functioning at the SATA
>I level or the SATA II level. The only method I have ever seen for this
>information was the utilities from the specific manufacturer to view the
>drive's firmware and change the state if necessary.
>
> I do remember in the recent past that the SATA II drives were being
> shipped in the SATA I mode because a few chipsets, like VIA, were not
> compatible with the SATA II mode, so you had to use their utility to
> change it to the SATA II mode.
>
> I prefer the ones with jumper pins you can short if you need SATA I.
>
>
>
>
> Tony Sperling wrote:
>> Hmm, interesting!
>>
>> You could try two usually quite revealing utitlities and see what they
>> have
>> to say:
>>
>> http://www.gtopala.com/
>>
>> where you'll find SIW.
>>
>> and
>>
>> http://www.snapfiles.com/get/aida32.html
>>
>> for AIDA32. I insert this link since the original site apparently is
>> closed,
>> and the author gone working for another company. No matter, the program
>> is
>> excellent!
>>
>>
>> Tony. . .
>>
>>
>>
>> "Jim" <jmegas@cal.berkeley.edu> wrote in message
>> news:73d46728-e987-4b4a-992a-0805ec04d00a@l42g2000hsc.googlegroups.com...
>>> I just made an interesting discovery, after *two years* with my Maxim
>>> PC "Dream Machine Plus." I had built an x64 dream server with a Tyan
>>> K8WE (S2895) motherboard, Dual Opteron 270s (all I could afford at the
>>> time), 8 GB of memory, a *brand new, latest and greatest AMCC 3ware
>>> 9950 SE RAID controller, and four new Hitachi drives. This RAID
>>> controller was one of the first RAID controllers on the market to
>>> support SATA 2 naively.
>>>
>>> At the time I originally installed the drives.I called Hitachi Global
>>> Technologies technical support to make certain that the drives were
>>> configured to run in SATA 2 mode. I was assured that they shipped as
>>> SATA 2 drives. I proceeded to set up a RAID 5 array.
>>>
>>> I had always had difficult with finding all four drives powering up
>>> properly at boot, and I often had to rebuild my array. As I had a PC
>>> Power & Cooling 1 KW power supply, I knew that power was *not* my
>>> problem.
>>>
>>> I just recently learned, by using the log on the controller, that the
>>> drives were all running in SATA I mode. Hitachi had been *wrong.* I
>>> had to use the "Hitachi Feature Tool" to individually change a setting
>>> in *each* of the four drives to set them for SATA II. I was a bit
>>> angry that (a) Hitachi had misled me and (b) it took me so long to
>>> find out.
>>>
>>> I am posting to this forum because other users may be unaware that
>>> their "SATA 2" drives are actually running at SATA 1. Unless one
>>> changes a setting in the drive's BIOS, the drive remains SATA 1.
>>>
>>> Perhaps there is an easy way to know the SATA setting of the drive,
>>> via some sort of Windows utility; but I did not know of one. In the
>>> future I will always check in advance.
>>>
>>> Jim
>>
 
Re: SATA RAID 2 with AMCC 9950 SE SATA 2 Conroller in x64

On Apr 10, 6:41 am, Theo <t...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

> I prefer the ones with jumper pins you can short if you need
> SATA I.

I would prefer that *too.* Seagate has jumpers to switch to SATA II.
I ran the utility, but it took quite a while to disconnect all the
drives and to flash each of them individually.

I do *not* think SIW tells you whether the drives are SATA I or SATA
II, and I think it would be impossible in RAID. The RAID controller
*does* tell you, but I did not know how to use it. (It turned out to
be fairly simple by reading the log.)

JIm
 
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