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[park]

I am getting "Delayed write..." errors on the C: drive on my server and have seen two complete losses of the MC library this week. I had to restore my library folder from a backup on another drive.

I guess the server is at fault huh? Perhaps on its' last legs.

[bob]

Doesn't sound good. Perhaps you should run the drive vendors disk test suite (most have pretty decent drive test tools).

[Sandy B Ridge]

I feel your pain.

I have just fallen foul of the Sandy Bridge bug (sic). I had intermittent loss of my bluray optical drive for the last few months. I finally got around to trying to fix it over the last couple of days and after a lot of swearing ( mostly at Apple because I thought iTunes had messed up the drivers - was one of the first hits on google for missing optical drive) I finally swapped some of the SATA plugs around and the drive works fine on the non-chipset ports, but in none of the 4 Intel ports. I've concluded that it's the dreaded B2 H67 MoBo bug that these boards were recalled for.

Now I have to get it replaced - what a pain!

SBR

[glynor]

I am getting "Delayed write..." errors on the C: drive on my server and have seen two complete losses of the MC library this week. I had to restore my library folder from a backup on another drive.

I guess the server is at fault huh? Perhaps on its' last legs.

Delayed write failures are due to one of:

1) the physical disk (or the partition format) going bad.
2) the disk controller (or its drivers) going bad.
3) a very badly timed power outage

If it happens, even once (not due to a power outage), it is Not A Good Sign.  Do a disk scan with the vendor's disk checker tool.  It is almost certainly the disk going bad (the controller is less likely, but you can try updating your storage drivers).

[jgreen]

I would vote that drive off the Island, pronto--it may already be a zombie.  In my experience a bad drive can function with only intermittent failures for quite a while, happily corrupting things as it goes.  It sounds like you have a good backup--I sure wouldn't overwrite any of it with stuff from the server.   

[MrC]

4) A drive cable is faulty or not up to spec.

[glynor]

4) A drive cable is faulty or not up to spec.

Very, very good point.  I don't know why I didn't think to mention that.

Faulty or loose cables can certainly cause this.  That would be a good thing to try.  Swap the cable and run the vendor's disk checker.

[park]

Thanks for all the advice guys.

I am really hoping that the drive isnt broken. I bought it new a couple of months ago after the previous system drive failed. I don't want to go through the whole reinstalling WHS thing again.

My server is a HPMediasmart server, and the drives kinda click into the sata connectors at the back when you install them, so if one of them is dodgy I can't imagine how I'd replace it.

At the moment, all the Delayed write errors seem to be coming from paths beginning with c:, or occasionally d:/. Both volumes belong to the same physical disk (the system drive) so I'm hoping the problem is just localised to there. I am nervous though because the d: partition has the "Shares" folder which points to the combined storage pool of the other 3 drives. When the server fails to write to the MC library (located in a Share), the error isn't pointing to the UNC network path, but the local "d:/shares/..../mc17 library". So even though the other drives might be fine, the fact that the server is failing to write data to them properly as it tries to go through the local path is, as jgreen mentioned, likely to cause trouble all over the place.

I will do as you suggested and try to find the maker's disk checker.

[MrC]

Suggestion.  Always have a spare drive and start copying data as soon as you detect the slightest trouble of this sort.  Do your detective work after the data transfer is done.  Assume the drive has only a few heartbeats remaining...

[MrC]

Very, very good point.  I don't know why I didn't think to mention that.

Faulty or loose cables can certainly cause this.  That would be a good thing to try.  Swap the cable and run the vendor's disk checker.

Since this was a real issue for me back in June 2005, I recalled it well.  The Shuttle SN25P AMD Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra Barebones system shipped with known, horrible SATA cables, causing exactly these problems.  After swapping them out, the problem was resolved permanently.

[DarkPenguin]

Always have a spare drive and start copying data as soon as you detect the slightest trouble of this sort.

Before.

[jesseinsf]

I am getting "Delayed write..." errors on the C: drive on my server and have seen two complete losses of the MC library this week. I had to restore my library folder from a backup on another drive.

I guess the server is at fault huh? Perhaps on its' last legs.

What kind of server is it? oh, got it WHS. What version of WHS do you have version 1 or version 2? And what is the make and model of the HDD? Is your WHS an OEM machine and if so, was the HDD included in the purchase?

[park]

It finally gave out on me. One time after a restart it never came back. I took out each disk and did diskchecks with the maker's tools and each one came up as no problems. If I just put in the first 2 drives the server would boot fine. If I added one to drive bay 3 or 4 it would hang before WHS could load. So I am guessing it was a hardware fault, perhaps the disk controller as somebody suggested.

My workaround has been to quit in the whole server thing and just use external usb enclosures to house my 4 hard disks, and connect them directly to my HTPC. Now my slightly underpowered Vista Home Premium HTPC acts as a Library Server.

Will have to do until I have money to throw around again. A real shame though to have that HP Mediasmart rotting in the closet. It was the first generation and so not the most powerful of computers, but I upgraded the RAM and it served me well for the last 5 years. I loved being able to remote desktop in to tinker with my library, and it had a very nice web interface for uploading/downloading files. For a while I really thought that WHS might be the future of consumer home storage. Terastations and the like are ok, but the power to install any piece of Windows software directly onto your storage device is pretty compelling.

[glynor]

Before.

Here here!

[MrC]

Copy data before would be part of an expected backup strategy.  My comment was about trying to salvage the primary data, without having to wait to see if the second chute opens.