I'm having some trouble getting my drives to preclear successfully. My drives are returing non zero values on post-read.

 

Firstly I have run memtest for 24hrs and the drives don't have an issues with reallocated sectors. My server specs can be foundhere.

 

The oddity is one of the drives I ran 5 times (1 pass each time) and it enventualy passed successfully on the fifth try. I just ran 5 more drives. I ran 3 at once, all failed. Ran the final 2 and they both passed. These drives are split over the two controllers, with one being plugged directly into the motherboard.

 

Date - Failed/Passed returning zero value

 

1 - (4TB Seagate)(Controller 2)

21/01 - Failed

30/01 - Passed

 

2 -  (4TB WD Red) (Onboard controller)

21/01 - Passed

11/02 - Passed

 

3 - (1TB Samsung)(Controller 2)

21/01 - Failed

23/01 - Failed

30/01 - Failed

05/02 - Failed

08/02 - Passed

 

4 - (4TB WD Green)(Controller 2)

11/02 - Failed

 

5 - (4TB WD Green)(Controller 1)

11/02 - Failed

 

6 - (4TB WD Green)(Controller 1)

11/02 - Failed

 

7 - (4TB WD Green)(Controller 1)

11/02 - Passed

 

8 - (2TB WD Black)(Controller 1)

11/02 - Not run yet

 

On drive 3 I think I tried a different cable with no change and went back to the original but still failed.

 

 

All WD drives were ran through garycase's test routine with no failures:

With Data Lifeguard I run a Quick test; then an extended test; then a full write zeroes; then repeat the quick & extended tests.   

Then I run one pre-clear cycle so the drive's ready to add without any need for UnRAID to clear it.

 

Any ideas?

I can post more details later if its helpful.

Well the WD black precleared fine on the first run. 

 

Tried to do just a post read on one of the greens that had previously failed and it failed again. 

 

Suggestions?

 

Try the drives that failed on your onboard controller ... you can run several at once if you want.

 

I've done so many tests now my head is spinning.

 

garycase, I had actually tried that but tried it again and sure enough the drives don't fail on the on onboard controller. Now one of my problems I was/am having is that since the drives failing to return zero's isn't consistent I have been having a hard time getting good troubleshooting info.

 

I had to change my test routine. I've now been using a batch of 250GB drives. Here's what I've tested thus far.

 

I removed all of the ram and tested one set of 4 in another machine for 24hrs/8 passes, no errors. That same memory was then tested again in the server for another 24hrs/ 8 passes. No errors.

 

All drive tests from here on were post-read-verify only with the fast post read switch.

 

I ran 5 drives all connected to aoc-sata2-mv8 , 3 passed, two failed.

 

I ran 5 drives all connected to onboard controller, all passed. (Suspected could be the card)

 

Moved the aoc-sata2-mv8 card to another machine setup for testing.

I ran 5 drives all connected to aoc-sata2-mv8 , all passed.

 

Moved aoc-sata2-mv8 back to the server, and removed the second aoc-sata2-mv8, so now only one aoc-sata2-mv8 is plugged in.

I ran 4 drives all connected to aoc-sata2-mv8 , all passed.

 

Reinstalled the second aoc-sata2-mv8.

I ran 4 drives connected to the first aoc-sata2-mv8, and 4 drives connected to the second aoc-sata2-mv8 , all passed. (Everything looks to be working. rerun to confirm)

Reran same config as above.

Some/most drives failed (Can't remember the exactly, forgot to take a screen capture)

 

Added a few more drives for 12 in total. 6 on each controller.

Now all drives fail.

 

I've hooked up a meter and monitored my voltages going to my backplane and they seem fine, had the meter monitoring and didn't drop bellow these values. 12v = 12.01v and 5v = 4.9v (there's a little voltage drop over the cables as the voltage is a little higher right off the PSU)

 

 

I've spent weeks now trying to figure out whats going on. I'm at a loss. Should I forget about not getting zero's back and move on? Is that wise??

 

EDIT:

 

Ran with 6 drives attached to one aoc-sata2-mv8. All drives passed.

Ran with 6 drives attached to the other aoc-sata2-mv8. All drives passed.

 

Ran with all 12 drives attached. 3 Failed

 

Ran with:

6 drives attached to one aoc-sata2-mv8

and

1 drive attached to the other aoc-sata2-mv8

and

5 drives connected to the on board controller.

All passed

 

Ran the above test again all passed a second time.

 

 

Ran with 8 drives attached to one of the aoc-sata2-mv8 - all passed

Re-ran the above test - all passed

 

Ran with

8 drives attached to one aoc-sata2-mv8

and

4 drives connected to the on board controller.

All passed.

 

Ran with

4 drives attached to one aoc-sata2-mv8

and

4 drive attached to the other aoc-sata2-mv8

1 drive failed

 

Ran with

7 drives attached to one aoc-sata2-mv8

and

3 drive attached to the other aoc-sata2-mv8

3 drives failed