RAID 0 - drive disappears

I have setup a computer with 3 WD Caviar Blue hard disks, the boot disk is a non-raid drive, the other 2 disks are setup in a raid-0 array, using the ASUS AHCI RAID drivers (Asus crosshair V Formula mobo).

The raid-0 array (disks 2 and 3) intermitently dissapear from the Windows 7 system whenever an intense hard disk activity occurs. E.g. when running a defrag on the raid, at some point the array dissapears completely from the computer. The disks can not be seen from the Computer Management either, the only solution consists on reboting the computer.

I was told on a different forum that it could be a timing issue:

“when you have heavy activity Windows waits a specified time for a return of the Off-board system ie: the HD’s Controller and since the Drive is so busy it can’t send the Control Response in time so Windows defaults to Drive Not Present and causes the Drive to Disappear. So Basically it comes down to Timing…”

I wonder if the WD people has docummented issues like this, and possible solutions. I would not like to drop my raid setup, but if the issue persists it sounds like I will have to dissasemble the raid setup and use the disks individually.

Look forward to hearing your comments and thoughts.

Cordially, Agustin.

Hello Mate,

Caviar blue are not raid recommended, I mean you can use it on raid but chances are that you experience some sort of problems. Exaclty what model do you have?

Is it documented somewhere ? The models are WD10EALX-009BA0

I’m wondering if I use the Windows RAID options, instead of the bios RAID options, if that would produce a different outcome…