Hard Disk Monitoring

Hi,
I have an Areca ARC-1280ML RAID controller (16 ports), which is on the supported list (the 8 port version). I have a number of hard drives connected to the RAID controller: 2/3 WD10EACS, 4 x WD20EADS (spare for testing), 6 x WD40EFRX (in RAID 5). I installed HDSentinel Pro v5.01 and it appears to get stuck obtaining information about the RAID drives -- the GUI never shows up and in Task Manager you can see the task sitting at 10-15% CPU utilisation.

If I boot with the Areca 1280ML present with NO DRIVES plugged in, then HDSentinel works fine.

It also starts up fine if some drives (WD20EADS) are plugged in, providing these are not made visible to the O/Sys (ie not assigned as pass through).
However it only sees those (i.e boot drive and others) drives on the ICH10 motherboard controller - not the drives attached to the Areca card.
This scenario also applies if I create a RAID set with the WD20EADS drives, but don't create any volumes - so still no drives visible to the O/Sys.

Interestingly, I did have this partially working some time ago with version 4.40 Pro when I was evaluating the product.
I therefore tried that version again, and HDSentinel did start up, and ALL 12/13 disks were recognised.
However, I couldn't execute any surface tests, it seemed to get stuck with the msg box "initialising".

I'm running Windows XP-Pro SP3 with the latest WinXP-32 (SCSIport) v6.20.31 [2014.11.28] Areca driver, and F/W v149-20101202,

Is there any way to get this working correctly, I'm happy to provide whatever information you require.

Thanks.

Thanks for your message and excuse me for the troubles.

No, I can confirm that HDS is not stuck. It is waiting for the response of the controller (more precisely its driver) which may never happens.

The problem is the firmware and driver may be too old for the new detection method used in the latest version of Hard Disk Sentinel (5.01).

Originally different method used for Areca controllers. It was working in most cases, but there were some limitations and minor compatibility issues with some controllers, plus it was not able to detect all drives (for example SAS drives when applicable) and newer controllers.

Because of this, after 4.71 version released, the Areca specific detection completely changed and rewritten to work properly with newer controllers, firmware and driver versions. However yes, then there may be issue with older firmware version, as (according Areca) this requires firmware version 1.51 and newer.

I just checked, but I'm afraid it seems the latest firmware is 1.49 for this controller, not sure if Areca will release updated firmware for this device or not. If possible, I'd recommend to ask them about the situation - as there may be difference.

Alternatively, you may use Hard Disk Sentinel 4.71 version, which has the "old" Areca-specific detection code. That may work better in this case, if the controller will have no further firmware and drives updates.
It (and generally older versions) available if you scroll down the Downloads page ( http://www.hdsentinel.com/download.php ) or directly from http://www.hdsentinel.com/hdsentinel_pro_setup471.zip

Hi Janos,

Thank you for the prompt reply.

I'll start looking at the older HDSentinel versions and see how well they perform.
I have an old ARC-1222 card that I think has F/W v1.51 on it, so I can check that too, if the card still works.
I'll also email Areca on plans for F/W updates for the ARC-1280, but as they list it as "legacy" now I think it's unlikely.

Do you know what configuration (versions of HDSentinel/Areca F/W & Driver/hardware) was used to test HDSentinel with the ARC-1280 and hence allow its inclusion in your list of compatible controllers? Also what functionality was available with that configuration. That would be a useful starting point for testing.

Another option I'm considering is upgrading to an ARC-1880 or ARC-1882 card, probably with an SAS Expander Card (HP-487738 or Intel-RES2SV240).
Is this combination likely to work - are there any known issues with accessing the drives via a port expander?

I have one further question, assuming I can get a properly working HDsentinel/Areca setup.
Will HDSentinel be able to perform full disk tests on the entire 4TB of the WDRed drives, even if I'm still running WinXP, as its a 32bit O/S?
I'm curious as I'm not sure how involved the O/Sys is in this process, since the drives themselves sit "behind" the Areca controller, which only presents the configured volumes to Windows (I've no idea how Areca configures the drives).
I'm assuming that HDSentinel operates only on the physical drives themselves (ie not the volumes that the RAID controller presents), is that correct?

Thanks for your help so far in this.

Hi Ethelred,

Yes, the 1222 with the 1.51 firmware version should generally work better with the updated version.

Generally the detection of Areca controllers in older Hard Disk Sentinel versions was completely different. The most important differences that by those older versions, only SATA drives could be detected (not SAS) and then it was not possible to determine the relation between logical drives / physical drives connected to Areca controllers (may be important in case of multiple arrays/logical volumes).
Generally all functions available (I mean not only the disk status checking, but also the short/extended self tests from the Disk menu) but these may not work in all cases.
Also in some situations even the detection or special functions (like using the self tests) caused that the controller did not respond to the software, so Hard Disk Sentinel seemed stuck (waiting forever).

Because of these, the detection replaced to work better with newer controllers, their newer firmware and drivers.

The 1280 personally not tested by me, tested successfully by a user with two hard disks in 2013. He used Hard Disk Sentinel pre-release test version before 4.30 and the driver was 6.20.0.25, date 1-11-2013 for the Areca 1280 controller, with latest firmware available at Feb 2013. Tested under Windows 2012 Server 64 bit.

The new version tested with different controllers, both 12xx, 16xx and 18xx series.
I had no problems with 1220 with FW 1.46, works with 5.01 version.
There should be no problems with 1680, 1880 / 1882 controllers too with the new version 5.01

Version 4.71 may be better with the older firmware and controller.

Generally the 1880 controller should be better. I know no issues with SAS expander/backplane, personally never experienced and no user reported issues with expander cards/backplanes/enclosures.


> I have one further question, assuming I can get a properly working HDsentinel/Areca setup.
> Will HDSentinel be able to perform full disk tests on the entire 4TB of the WDRed drives, even if I'm still running WinXP, as its a 32bit O/S?

There are different types of tests available.
The hardware self tests (Disk menu -> Short, extended self tests) run in the level of hard disk: these run inside the hard disk by sending the appropriate commands to the drive.
Assuming that the controller works correctly, the commands reach the hard disk, these can be used in all cases to test the drives, even if the operating system is not able to address the complete array correctly. The OS has no control about how the test runs, how the drives configured and how the test is performed.

Also there are other tests: the Disk menu -> Surface test functions test the complete array exported and available for the OS.
As with XP 32 bit, it may be not possible to address sectors over the 2 TB range (if the complete array is configured with 512 bytes/sector) then you may have problems accessing the total data area.
Or the Areca controller can create array with 4 K physical sector size? Then as the number of addressable sectors is lower, it may be possible to address the complete data area up to 16 TB under Windows XP 32 bit.
This way the surface test functions can test the complete array, verifying both the drives and the actual storage subsystem (including cables, connections, enclosure, controller integrity) - and the hardware self tests can be used to test drives individually.

Please check the Help for more information about the different testing options / functions.


> I've no idea how Areca configures the drives.

To be honest, I'm not sure if the controller can export the array of drives with 4K physical sector size which would be required in this case, I do not know such option/feature.
And if this is true, the array is exported with 512 bytes/sec, then under XP 32 bit, the total addressable capacity is limited to 2 TB
(the page http://www.hdsentinel.com/hard_disk_cas ... orrect.php gives more information about such limitation).

> I'm assuming that HDSentinel operates only on the physical drives themselves (ie not the volumes that the RAID controller presents), is that correct?

No, it is not really true.

The status detection, reporting and the use of disk features from Disk menu (Acoustic management configuration, Advanced power management configuration, Free fall control) and the hardware self tests (Disk menu -> Short self test, Extended self test) work at the level of the physical disk drives.
But there are other tests (Disk menu -> Surface test functions, Disk menu -> Random seek test) run at the level of the created and exported volume.