[Gllug] 3 Ware RAID (not)

[Ken Smith]

I had a configuration with a 3-Ware ATA RAID controller with 3 Maxtor 40Gb
disks in RAID 5 running a RedHat EL system. The second disk began to log
errors and just in case I started an extra backup. While the backup was
running the array failed completely. I/O timeout messages were showing on
the console. 

The Raid bios showed disk 0 as available and disks 1 & 2 as incomplete. The
Maxtor PowerMax utility showed disk 1 as failing, 0 and 2 as OK. I have
those two disks working elsewhere without problems.

I have subsequently reconstructed the machine with 3 120G disks, but my
question is this: Why should a single disk failing have corrupted the RAID 5
array? I thought the whole idea of Raid 5 is surviving single disk failure.

I wrote to 3-Ware support about this a month ago - no reply yet. Has anyone
had similar experience with these controllers? My confidence in this
hardware is not high.

Ken


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