ATI SB600 RAID = absalute garbage

Judas · Dec 19, 2007, 01:30 PM

I'm rather fed up.... the thing is a useless hunk of crap... period.

Why the hell ati went with promise i'm not sure.... but the system is useless in every manner..

Linux users are frustrated by the sb600... windows is also just as bad off..

Why have i come to this conclusion?

Lets start with the absurd nature of how things are handled with Raid 1 arrays... ya know the type of arrays where you shouldn't have much of anything to worry about if a drive goes down?

Actually you have everything to worry about, the chances of you getting the system to rebuild the array is in the negative percentages rather then postive.... that's how horrible things are..

What idiot company would setup the rebuilding and structuring of a raid system within windows but still have a "hardware" aspect of it all to futher complicate it... don't mix the systems... it doesn't work (obviously)

Heres the deal:

Raid 1 2 identical drives.

If drive 1 (the first drive listed) crashes, your screwed, because reguardless of how you connect the drives in hopes of getting the system to boot, it refuses to boot from any other drive then the master one.... so in hopes of getting something working, you will HAVE to disconnect that drive to get windows to load.... however the kicker is, enless you have a drive connected at boot.... the sb600 raid mode won't see another drive connected.... so you can't use the software gui system to rebuild the array.

So your stuck in an endless loop of no way of getting anything solved other then to wipe the system and delete the array and start again only to possibly run into the issue again.

The thing that i'm really pissed off about it SOMEHOW the 2 drives lost syncronization....how or why is unknown... but they both appear to have a few GB differences which is just beyond my understanding for a raid 1 array.

AND NO, this isn't an isolated issue, i ran into this on vista/xp and on 3 different boards with the SB600 chipset...

Either way, if you looking at a raid 1 array or raid 5 or raid 10 array, don't bother looking at a system with the SB600...

someone should be strangled for the stupidity involved...

PangingJr · Dec 19, 2007, 02:41 PM

Next time be sure to try one of the Intel Express chipsets with Intel Matrix Storage Technology. - Intel® Matrix Storage Technology

Judas · Dec 19, 2007, 04:40 PM

Actually what is pissing me off the most is that i orginally was building the system with the intel ICH9R chipset..

But due to the price they wanted to go cheaper even though i highly recommended against it..

i do this rarely, but i did what i was told.. and gave them a few options and they wanted to go with the cheaper AMD/ati path... the xpress x1250 series (Asus M2A-VM HDMI) with 2 160gb sata2 drives in raid 1....

I had the machine running fine for nearly 3 months.....

then this happened.. both hardrives show perfectly.. pass all the tests.... you name it...

but the bastard of a raid controller royally screwed up.....

with the intel matrix, it would be as simple as rebuilding the array..... quick and easy... hell doesn't matter what drive it is..

This ati raid 1 array system is a pathetic joke, how this passed any form of quality standards i'm not sure....

PangingJr · Dec 20, 2007, 01:55 AM

i know you like the Intel ICH RAID more.

i was just telling the guy for you that it's probably a mistake to think that it will work, and next time he may want to try Intel's and see if it makes things work better.

Judas · Dec 20, 2007, 01:33 PM

i'm currently looking for a motherboard that is identical to that of a Asus P5K SE but with a ICH9R instead of a ICH9 chipset.... The motherboard is a excellent cheap and fast running motherboard.... sure a lack of bios options.. but were not overclocking here...

browsing......

***temeteus82*** · Dec 20, 2007, 01:38 PM

Judas have you looked Abit's IP35?

Judas · Dec 20, 2007, 01:55 PM

i'm not touching another abit board for quite some time....

While the board looks good..

It needs to meet my requirements...

being:

Realtek ALC88x HD audio onboard
PCI-EX 16 slot is nessary
ICH9R southbridge is a must
Single 12vP4 connector (dual is unnessary for the general cheaper builds... the PSU's are a little on the expensive side for the dual 12vP4 (P8) connectors...

I like to try and stay away from the mATX form factor systems..

If it's got any video intergrated i also like to stick to ATI... intel's a bit of a last resort ditch effort, but generally stay away from intergrated period.... (course this is a bit of an exception due to the purpose of the machine)

I'll find something here shortly....

Gigabyte and Asus is what i'm working with.... my recent experiences with Abit/MSI/EVGA/DFI boards are not pleasant.

PangingJr · Dec 20, 2007, 02:06 PM

what i have here are ASUS P5K / P5K SE and P5KR
and GigaByte GA-P35-DS3R and GA-P35C-DS3R, they are now all selling at about same prices, prices are almost no different.

GA-P35-DS3R and P5KR, both do have Intel ICH RAID.
GA-P35C-DS3R has Intel ICH RAID and supports DDR3/DDR2.

hmm, btw, i don't know how come i always thought you liked overclocking.

Judas · Dec 21, 2007, 01:28 AM

I've been eying the GA-P35-DS3R and P5KR.....

now about availability is another matter where i am... they are both considerably more expensive then the P5K SE

PangingJr · Dec 21, 2007, 01:55 AM

P5KR, P35-DS3R, P35C-DS3R and even P35-DS3P (which used to cost more than what it is costing now) are now selling at about similar prices (for my today's price list).

Judas · Dec 21, 2007, 01:59 AM

Out here it's a wee bit different...

but this might all change soon as the new year rolls around

Dyre Straits · Dec 21, 2007, 02:00 AM

Judas, just out of curiosity, what has been your bad experience with MSI boards? I've never had one until the past couple of weeks when I needed to pick up a board and got a nice price on this one:

MSI P35 Neo-F Socket 775 FSB1333 onboard 8 channel audio ATX Motherboard - Ebuyer

So far, I've had some fun overclocking it with this E6700 I've got and 2x1GB of Dual Channel RAM. It's not the 'flexible' overclocker I had in the ASUS P5N-E Sli board, but that ASUS board had some serious problems with the RAM slots. Lots of people posting about it all over the place.

But, for the price, this board is doing nicely..... so far.

Judas · Dec 21, 2007, 02:09 AM

Every single MSI board i've EVER owned has always given me troubles..

the MSI 975x PU rev2 irritated the hell outa me.... so many things wrong.

but even the cheaper models i've fooled around have produce just weird errors.... don't know, but each one has been plagged with BSODs of some sort or errors in another... Just all around unstable and unreliable..

Abit, well, i'm quite fond of the abit design.... but while i loved my KA7-100 board, first motherboard available with ATA100 support AND RAID support...... fast bastard...

The caps all blew.... bad mistake on abits part..

but the AT7-MAX2 boards were ingenious.... very little issues, however both boards just up and died for no reasons at all.

Course the initial love in the nforce 2 ultra boards that abit had, and then the horrors after..... i'm sure Zardon would recall, and repost his opinion on that matter at some point in time.... Course i could do a search on it right now if i wanted to

But the newer boards have also shown excellent overclocking results, but consistance is another matter..

Nope, gigabyte is my all round favorite for stability and reliability.... Asus is 2nd (course a number of years ago i didn't put asus up very high)....

I give every company another whirl at least once a year... see how things are rolling.

But i also rely on fast and reliable technical support.. and how RMA services are doing not to mention a few other things such as bios updates and capability improvements...

Asus is excellent for update to date bioses, and so is gigabyte.... while the others tend to just drop it the moment a new version of a board appears....

Dyre Straits · Dec 22, 2007, 04:55 AM

I've actually had quite a fondness for ABIT boards in the past. I've owned at least...I think....four different ones and was pleased with them all. One of them, the BE6-II did develop that capacitor problem but I was able to replace them myself and get another year or so use from it.

This MSI board is my very first experience with one. So, I'm hoping for the best but, I didn't invest a lot in it and it's purpose is really just a stopgap until I get a much better setup. It's hard to believe that components these days that are only 8 months old are already so out of date. LOL!

Judas · Dec 22, 2007, 01:46 PM

I hope you have an excellent experience with the MSI board.

I'm actually quite fond of abit.. because they have inovation and insane performance values.... plus a load of different boards to fill the options someone may want..

But they have consistantly failed after only a few years of use.... which with the gigabyte and asus boards, i've got boards here 10 years old performing excellently yet.

I've YET to run into a MSI or Abit or other board that still works properly..

Excluding the HP MSI boards..... which are garbage from the get go.