N8800 and WD 1.5GB Drives

[Lowecorp]

oops - should be WD 1.5TB drives


Short version:
N8800 + 3.00.07a + WD15EADS-00S firmware 4.0 = Fail
N8800 + 3.00.07a + WD15EADS-00P firmware 1.0 = OK

Longer version:
Upgraded N8800 to 3.00.07a and the once stable raid with the WD15EADS-00S (fw 4.0) is now randomly failing the drives.
The raid with the WD15EADS-00P (fw 1.0) drives has remained ok.


Really long version:
We have had an n8800 for some time now, It is filled with WD 1.5TB drives. The firmware on the box was 3.00.06 and the system was rock solid stable. Six drives are in a raid 6 and the remaining two are striped and used via iscsi as temp space for the backup server.

The six drives in the raid 6 are WD15EADS-00P with drive firmware of 1.0 (according to the N8800 disk page)
The two drives in the striped raid are newer WD15EADS-00S drive firmware 4.0

After reading through these forums and seeing the problems people where having with raids degrading and disks being failed out, I thought I should upgrade to a newer firmware, from these forums it seemed that 3.00.07a was the one to go to.

Ever since the firmware update one or both of the drives in the stripe raid are being failed (red light on the front) popping the drive for a few seconds and replacing and it shows as OK in the gui. At some random point in the future it will fail (or the other will). I have tried destroying the raid, removed both disks and formatted them, then rebuilt in the N8800, but still the drives continue to fail.

Strangely the older model of the drives (00P with firmware 1.0) seem fine and I haven't had a problem with the drives or the raid 6 that's on them.

/rant
I can understand that supporting many different hard drives, each with different functionality and features is difficult
But I find it difficult to swallow that a device advertised by Thecus as an "enterprise class" raid system that is "perfect for medium to large businesses" should have these problems.

A firmware upgrade should add features/stability not remove them.

From the responses on these forum of Thecus staff members we are recommended to upgrade to at least 3.00.07a for optimal stability and performance, and yet it seems I should have stayed with the previous firmware.

If Thecus are aware of these issues why is there not prominent warnings to prospective buyers that only certain drives are know to be stable?

I understand that the current compat list notes that only 90% of configurations with WD15EADS drives are stable - it's just that I had stability before and now I don't after following recomendations by Thecus.
On the device overview page it should be at least noted that the HDD compatability list is not just a recomendation but must be followed to have any chance at stability. it should also be noted that different firmwares support different drives and that Thecus have not really tested all the ones on the list so they may be removed once enough paying beta testers have struck disaster.

I guess the really short version could be: N8800 + {expectation of enterprise stability} = Fail

/end rant

Not really expecting much from this, more just a FYI

Of course now I'm not going to touch the firmware again as I don't like playing russian roulett. I think I will replace the two drives with something from the current list - I have a couple WD6400AAKS drives I will try out, although I'm not that confident that being on the list means they will be stable.