Advice needed please!

[pager94 4]

Hi All,I'm just built a new system about a month ago. It looks like one of my Western Digital 10,000 RPM VelociRaptor drives is going out. It was working fine the over the last 2 weeks is seems to randomly dismount and disappear. The were a HUGE amout of index and registry problems with it, CHKDSK found on startup MANY times. Overall, it was > 10,000 index problems on all the startups. I've deleted the partician and reformated at least 10x's. No when I run checkdsk, checkdsk seems to get locked up. Several times the last few days the drive doesn't show up on windows boot. Howver, on inital startup the controller shows it is functioning fine.Windows 7 64 Bit professional.I have a bad feeling about this drive. The drive is deticated for MEGASCENERY earth, I've got almost the whole collection and takes a tremendous amount of time to install at least 200+ tiles (approx. 1.5 GB each). I think I'm better off sending it back to Amazon for a replacment. I paid about $270 for it, I have a second one that is working just fine.Any advice for the situation?Thanks,Billy Bob

[idahosurge 2]

Do you happen to have your two VR's hooked up to the Marvell Sata port? If you do try downloading and installing the latest Marvell drivers for your MB off the Asus website. The original drivers for that port had problems.

[Guest jahman]

...I have a bad feeling about this drive....

Feelings are great for managing relationships with people. For Western Digital HDDs you're better off with thefree WD Data Lifeduard Diagnostic that reads HDD SMART - "Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology"registers on the disk drive.Cheers,- jahman.

[pager94 4]

Do you happen to have your two VR's hooked up to the Marvell Sata port? If you do try downloading and installing the latest Marvell drivers for your MB off the Asus website. The original drivers for that port had problems.

Yes, there are 2 VR's. I think the Marvell drivers are most current but will double check.Thanks,BB

Feelings are great for managing relationships with people. For Western Digital HDDs you're better off with thefree WD Data Lifeduard Diagnostic that reads HDD SMART - "Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology"registers on the disk drive.Cheers,- jahman.

WD Lifeguard analyzed the drive and found no problems.Thanks

[Guest jahman]

...WD Lifeguard analyzed the drive and found no problems....

OK, then your HDD is good. As idahosurge suggested, check you have the lastest SATA driver (and MB BIOS and Intel chipset drivers).Cheers,- jahman.

[Guest veeray]

pager94: that drive is toast. send it back.

[GHD 21]

I had exactly the same problem running two vraps on the Marvell connectors. I moved one of them to a mobo SATA 2 and left the other on a Marvell connector and both work fine.

[pager94 4]

I had exactly the same problem running two vraps on the Marvell connectors. I moved one of them to a mobo SATA 2 and left the other on a Marvell connector and both work fine.

I have Asus P6X58D Premium mother board. All chipset and Marvel drivers are now current. I just updated the bios to a new version released last week.The MB has 2x SATA 6.0 Gb/s ports both Velociraptors are pluged into them. The remaining Sata ports are standard 3.0 Gb/s.Amazon is sending me a new replacment VR to replace the one that keeps dismounting, with overnight shipping free of charge. Amazon is great! I hope that is the problem. I'm using the 2 x 6.0Gb/s SATA cables supplied by Asus for the VR's.

[Alex Sarfati 0]

Hi,Did you try what was suggested earlier, which was plugging one VRap into the Marvel connector and another into the standard SATAII connector, and see if it works?

[pager94 4]

Hi,Did you try what was suggested earlier, which was plugging one VRap into the Marvel connector and another into the standard SATAII connector, and see if it works?

I'll try that as a last resort. I would like to keep the VRap on hi-speed 6.0 Gb/s SATA.Thanks,BB

[dazz 69]

I'll try that as a last resort. I would like to keep the VRap on hi-speed 6.0 Gb/s SATA.Thanks,BB

It's not going to make any difference at al. I think there's only one SSD in the market able to max out SATA 2.0. A VRaptor is not even close

[TechguyMaxC 516]

It's not going to make any difference at al. I think there's only one SSD in the market able to max out SATA 2.0. A VRaptor is not even close

Crucial's C300 being the drive you are thinking of, it actually exceeds the maximum throughput capabilities of SATA 2 (3G) so it's better paired with a SATA 3 (6G) port. The next generation of drives using the Sandforce 2xxx line of controllers will far exceed what even this notorious SSD can achieve, thus finally giving users a need for SATA 3 (6G).

[Guest jahman]

It's not going to make any difference at al. I think there's only one SSD in the market able to max out SATA 2.0....

Not if you install two smaller SSDs in RAID 0.Cheers,- jahman.

[dazz 69]

Crucial's C300 being the drive you are thinking of, it actually exceeds the maximum throughput capabilities of SATA 2 (3G) so it's better paired with a SATA 3 (6G) port. The next generation of drives using the Sandforce 2xxx line of controllers will far exceed what even this notorious SSD can achieve, thus finally giving users a need for SATA 3 (6G).

Not if you install two smaller SSDs in RAID 0.Cheers,- jahman.

I know, but he has none of those, it's Velociraptors we're talking about here, or am I missing something?I know I said in the past that SATA 3.0 would be unnecessary for years to come and I couldn't be more wrong about that, but in this case there's no reason why he can't plug his VR in the SATA 2.0 connector. Isn't it right?

[idahosurge 2]

There is a difference in performance in a VR Sata 3GB/s drive on a Sata 3GB/s controller and VR Sata 6GB/s drive hooked up to a Sata 6GB/s controller. I did not do a benchmark for it, but I would assume that the VR Sata 6Gb/s drive hooked to a Sata 3Gb/s controller would provide the same approximate performance that the VR Sata 3Gb/s drive hooked to the Sata 3Gb/s controller did. For those who are interested see the attached. The JMicron 300GB screenshot is a Sata 3Gb/s 300GB Vrap hooked to the Sata 3Gb/s JMicron controller. The Marvell 9123 600GB screenshot is a Sata 6Gb/s 600GB Vrap hooked to the Sata 6Gb/s Marvell controller.Since FSX is pretty much all about reading you can see in the File Benchmark area the 600GB Vrap on the Marvell controller has a lot better read benchmarks. Also look at the Random Access benchmarks and the 600GB Vrap on the Marvell Controller is also a lot better and the higher the transfer size the better it gets. Also look at the top left benchmark (Benchmark) the 600GB Vrap CPU usage is only 1% while the 300GB Vrap CPU usage is 3.2% leaving less CPU available for FSX.