First hardware raid, first data loss !!

[Camomille]

Hello,

hearing everywhere that HW raid is better than SW raid, i bought an adaptec 3805 to wich 8 WD15EADS are connected.

One 8.1To Raid 6 array were created using Adaptec interface and Openfiler 2.3 is installed on a
separate ide drive.

OF Volume groups, Volumes and shares were looking like this:

1 VG camotargets (for iscsi targets)

2.VG camostock (7452000 MB) including:
a. Volume STOCK01 including one shared folder named camofun

b. Volume STOCK02 including one shared folder named camobackup

This config was running fine until I got an alert sound from the raid card. When system rebooted, I got different error messages:
like " kernel monitor failed" or " firmware too old" ...

System started back again normally after a shutdown -h and one night powered off. Raid has been rebuild.

Volume groups and volumes are intact but Share "camofun" is not present anymore.

Do you think there is a possibility to recover lost data ?

Sorry for this litterature. I wanted things to be clear

I think I'll go for linux raid and there will soon be a Adaptec 3805 raid card for sale on Ebay !!! $$$ £££ !!

Great thanks for your help, comments or any good advice.

Greetings to all.

Camomille

[erosbk]

Did you updated all your hw fw to last level?

[Camomille]

Thanks for your answer and sorry for my late reply !

No I didnt ! Adaptec 3805 present FW is "5.2.0 b15728 " from April 2008.
Asus M2N-X is v 403 dated may 2007. There has been 6 new non beta bios afterwards !!

Maybe this could be good to update MB bios and 3805 bios but I'm afraid I will never feel secure with this! I'm already looking what MB have 8 stata connectors !!!

Great thanks again.

Greetings to all.

Camomille

[erosbk]

Read about what new firmware fix from the olders. A lot of hw/sw problem in raid are just for an outdated firmware (is common for example, in the IBM 8k raid to have raid crashes with some fw versions... the common procedure is: if you have NO problems, never update any fw (unless some driver or something requires). If you have problem, update to last level and test again.

Next time please... take note (or a picture with your phone) of the exact error... that would help us to help you in a better way! :P