<TWL> The War Legends

I bought a couple of 60gb OCZ Agility 3 SSD Drives to a raid 0 for the boot drive on my new rig. Nothing but trouble. OCZ forums techs still trying to figure out the problems. These are the basic problems.

1. Freezes. All of a sudden the round thinking thing comes on and just stays there.

2. Won't suspend

3 BSOD all the time

STAY AWAY....you have been warned!

I have used raid before but stopped using it soon after.My backup software wouldn't work and losing one drive will lose both.Solid state harddrives are very expensive as well as the 10,000 rpm rapters.
There was not a big speed difference between my pc raided and non raided,in fact i didn't actually notice a speed drop.
I just made a server for a friend which has 8 times 500 gb harddrives and two 250 gb drives for windows.
The 250 gb drives are raided as a copy,and the 500 gb drives are a copy as well incase a harddrive fails.
If i was building your computer i would leave it as standard and use the other for data or raid it as a backup incase a drive fails.
I make regular backups so if a drive fails it will be a pain but not a disaster.I also have a removable harddrive which i store data on then file it away.I have a 500gb for photos,movies,mysic,documents etc and a 500gb drive for downloaded programs,game files and everything else.
I have never seen a solid state drive because they are so expensive.

http://hackaday.com/2009/03/09/24-solid ... s-in-raid/

I was talking with him last night in TS paul .. Told him the same thing .. forget about raiding the drives ... just use 1 as a boot partition .. OR just sell them and get 1 120 or a 240 .. I have a few SS Drives .. don't raid at all .. I would if I had 5 drives .. woot .. raid 5... hot swappable but I don't .. anyways .. I'd say his issues are more with the raid controller then the drives .. I have alot of OCZ RAM .. same as there SSD'd .. and have never had issues .. Be interested in the out come .. Keep us posted Mal ..

Rock -Out

I've had raid 0 for some time with my raptors. They've been flawless for several years now. I keep an image of the boot drive just in case the unthinkable occurs. I don't keep anything important on it, just the OS and games. Just looking for performance (not that it helps my playing any). I've got a 500gb for all the rest and back all the important stuff to the external.

I recently built a new system and thought it was a good time to jump to the SSD. They are truly stupid fast even when compared to the raided raptors, that is when they are working. I've been reading and digging into the forums making sure the drivers and firmware is up to date. The new sandforce 2281 controller is having some teething pains from everything that I can see. I think I am going to shelf them for a while until they get the bugs worked out. I'm wasting all of that i7-2600k and gtx 580 goodness.

Rock...here is the link to the specific drive I have. In the specifications the controller(somtimes called processor) is listed as the SandForce 2281. This is the brains for the SSD itself and is the new standard for the SATA III 6GB interface (SandForce is what is having the problem).

http://www.ocztechnology.com/res/manual ... 284%29.pdf

The motherboard I have (Asrock)Z68 Extreme 4. The Z68 chipset on the motherboard incorporates the next generation 6Gb/s SATA and RAID controller driving the ports and is responsible for the interface to the components on the other end of the cable such as the SSD Drive (plus many other functions on the motherboard).

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ ... ipset.html

Maj. Malfuncion

Whats the Firmware version of the drives ?

What version of Windows 7 are you in 32 / 64 bit

Whats the BIOS version of your Asrock 'I like the name of your main board "

If you don't mind .. Can you go to this link and download Sisoft Sandra Pro "NO VIRUS on this site .. VERY clean, has been for years" http://fosi.alphasys.nl/

It will look at your hardware and create a log .. can you post the log

More times then not .. The issue isn't with the hardware .. it's how it's installed, Updated, and drivers used ... I'm going to do a bit of read on your main board as well over the next few days ..

I'm not going to rule out Hardware issues .. pretty sure .. it's not with the drives though .. Main board chipset's I think .. but we'll see

Rock - Out

quick question .. how soon do you experience either a crash or BSOD ?

My rule has always been .. IF i'm having issues with a new mobo .. I always Remove all other un-needed hardware . Other drives, hard drive, Optical.. anything that doesn't need to be used to test ..

SIsoft will also test your RAM ...

OH .. last note ... in the BIOS .. are you running the drives in ahci mode ?

You said you had a image .. when you make changes .. either to BIOS .. 'up dates" or to the drive .. firmware .. You really should do clean installs of the OS ,,, not from an image .. Then once in the OS .. install the latest RAID contollers in the OS .. firstly let OS install .. if issues .. then install OEM drivers .. ALSO .. if you get BSOD .. go in to SAFE MODE .. see if you get crash or BSOD there ..

I'd say .. the Clean install of OS on to formatted drive/s is very important ..

rock - out

C/P from Toms Hardware

Why do you feel you have to use RAID 0? There seems to be some obsession on here to use RAID 0. It is NOT a good idea, especially for longer term storage (RAID 0 for a staging drive, where the data will be held briefly while being processed, that makes sense). It guarantees that you lose all your data in the case of a single drive failure, and by using two drives, you double the chance of drive failure. Plus it means that you lose TRIM support.

Why not just use the drives separately? They are remarkably fast drives, and you'll see how much faster they are than a velociraptor, even when you run them separately.

Gee solid state drives,gtx580 and intel i7cpu would cost a fortune.i have tried to buy from tiger direct and newegg but neither will ship to new zealand.The video card here will be approx 700 to 750 usd and that is from a mail order shop.If i went to a computer shop to buy it expect to pay 900 to 1000 usd.The cpu will be about 350 to 1200 usd mail order or 500 to 1600 usd in a shop.Add the motherboard and fast ram and the solid state drives = a very expensive computer.

Thanks for all the suggestions Rock. Everything you mentioned I have already done. No joy. Reinstalled the spinners and everything is A-Ok. If I had it to do all over again... yes I would only use one SSD. The reason for the extra drive and raiding it was primarily the capacity (well maybe a little speed greed). 60Gb is just not enough for a boot drive and a couple of games anymore. The drive really only has approx 55Gb true usable space when formatted. Windows 7 alone after updates takes up 37Gb. As you can see not much wiggle room after that.

From all my research however, the OCZ drives based on the SandForce 2281 controller have issues. After all of the firmware upgrades, their forums are still plastered with people experiencing the same problems as myself. I guess what I am trying to tell everyone is be aware of this problem should you be in the market for an SSD. Just passing on lessons learned.



Paul..that's unbelievable the prices you quote. I think I spent right at a $1000 for the motherboard, 16gb RAM, processor, and video card.

Asrock Z68 Extreme 4
i7-2600k
16Gb GSkill DDR3 1600
EVGA GTX 580

All that and I still can't play worth crap.

There is a reason why I am called Maj.Malfunction

The video card here is 667 to 757 usd dollars from a mailorder supplier.
http://www.pp.co.nz/VideoCards-PCI-Express-nVidia.php
I am not sure what cpu you have but here is a mailorder shop here and the prices in new zealand dollars.

converter.
http://www.xe.com/ucc/