Problems with server drives or controller
I have a client whos server performance had degraded significantly. When I look at the logs I see a bunch of Errors Event ID 11 with the source of Disk. I also have Warnings Event ID 51. For Event ID 11 it says 'The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk1\DR1' and for Event ID 51 it says 'An error was detected on device \Device\Harddisk1\DR2 during a paging operation. This server is running a RAID 5 using an Intel Matrix Storage Manager to run the RAID but does not have a troubleshooting module. I don't know if it is a bad drive or the controller is having a problem but right now the server is running but for how long. Please help or give me some suggestions.
ASKER
The problem is I am running a raid 5 so the device manager only sees one drive, the raid so i can't tell. When I look at the inside of the box there are no lights on the hard drives to tell. Arrg.
1. Backup everything NOW, it is always good to have recent backups, the more the merrier, how many drives are in this array? it looks like 2 are marginal.. not good.
2. You will have to schedule some downtime for this server.
3. Reboot the machine while it is rebooting bring up the intel matrix controller bios (ctrl-I if I remember correctly)
4. From here you can see the status of your disk drives.
5. Alternately you can download the desktop tray application http://intel.ly/10QlQZX
6. The system being very slow is because of the constant retries back and forth.
7. check to ensure that you are NOT using any GREEN drives.. These are NOT supported in RAID.
2. You will have to schedule some downtime for this server.
3. Reboot the machine while it is rebooting bring up the intel matrix controller bios (ctrl-I if I remember correctly)
4. From here you can see the status of your disk drives.
5. Alternately you can download the desktop tray application http://intel.ly/10QlQZX
6. The system being very slow is because of the constant retries back and forth.
7. check to ensure that you are NOT using any GREEN drives.. These are NOT supported in RAID.
ASKER
I upgraded Intel Matrix to the latest version, Intel Rapid Storage, and ran the tool that is included in that version to check the drives. All three drives came up healthy however the application did find 7 errors and corrected them. The machine is running a little better but still sluggish. Maybe with the new driver for the controller it will work better and the issue might clear up but I think it might be something more.
This is a Windows 2008 Foundation server which only has 4GB of ram so I might up the RAM to its max, 8GB, and see if that helps. I will see tomorrow.
This is a Windows 2008 Foundation server which only has 4GB of ram so I might up the RAM to its max, 8GB, and see if that helps. I will see tomorrow.
Are any of the drives "green" drives are or they red or black ?
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ASKER
This wasn't an issue with the drives but with the controller and the amount of ram on the machine. The Raid controller had outdated drivers and I believe that was causing the errors on the machine. I checked all drives and they were all healthy.
also you can check device manager see if all hd up running.