HighPoint RocketRaid 3522 Problems
by Randall Brown
on
May 26, 2008 at 10:20:25 pm
I am having some problems, and I wanted to see if anyone else was seeing the same thing that I am. I have rolled my own RAID 5 Set-up around the Highpoint 3522
- Highpoint RocketRaid 3522
- 5 Seagate 1TB 7200.11 drives configured as RAID 5
- Enhance M8L Enclosue (8 Drive Sata Infiniband Enclosure)
- MacPro 8 core 2.8, 10 GB RAM, 2 400 GB Seagate Drives inside, ATI Card
- Mac OS X 10.5.2 & FCS2 both freshly installed and configured
Here is what is happening
- On large file READS / Tansfers OFF the RAID, the finder locks up and the card locks up. I discovered when I went to move a project off the RAID to a G-Raid Mini for the road, and the finder locked up. I could not copy the data off the RAID. I could read it just fine and edit off it just fine, but if I tried to move the files in mass, the finder would hang and the card would lock up, or worse it would cause a kernel panic.
- AJA Speed tests show me in the high 300s for reads and write, though on the read it does hang for a second at the end, but eventually ends and reports out.
- The RAID array has been completely wiped and rebuilt, the driver uninstalled and reinstalled, and the card updated, and the system drive completely rebuilt from scratch, but still no dice. Again if I edit normal off it in DVCPROHD its fine, but when I go to move lots of data it locks up.
Anyone out there with this card? Could you try to move a folder of files 30+ GBs off your RAID and let me know what happens. Again none of my normal work on it showed this issue.
I am waitting to talk to the guys at HIghpoint tommorrow, the drives have been tested and they passed SMART and some other tools. Its odd, I am thinking driver, or i may have gotten a dud. But if anyone out there could test this for me, it would be appreciated.
Re: HighPoint RocketRaid 3522 Problems by David Roth Weiss on May 26, 2008 at 10:30:24 pm
Randall,
Its possible that the problem you're having is with the G-raid mini, not the raid. I'm wondering if there's a bottleneck and the raid is fouling-up because the G-raid simply can't keep up.
Try xfering data to an internal drive as a test. If it works, you may find it necessary to copy to the internal drive and then to the G-raid mini.
Let me know if this theory has merit...
David
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW's Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.
Re: HighPoint RocketRaid 3522 Problems by Randall Brown on May 27, 2008 at 12:57:43 am
Yea i tried that, it didnt help. I did the internal drive, the start-up drive, the g-drive raid, mini, and all the same. Whats really wierd, is that i can burn a DVD of the same files that wont copy when dragged. This has me stumped.
Re: HighPoint RocketRaid 3522 Problems by Sean ONeil on May 27, 2008 at 3:43:04 am
As long as write-back cache is enabled, and you have the latest drivers and firmware, then you're doing everything right. It could just be a drive incompatibility. The disk drive makers rushed to get 1TB models on the shelves. I've heard a lot of problems with the Samsung ones. Haven't heard anything about the Seagates, but anything's possible.
Whenever you build your own RAID, it's really important to make sure the controller card has been tested with the model hard drive you plan to use.
Do not troubleshoot this to death in hopes that it will eventually work. If it's not to late, be prepared to return those disks and try a model that Highpoint recommends.
EDIT: I just checked and see that there's a firmware update for your card released in January. See if you have the latest one. If not you gotta update it. Unfortunately you need a PC to do that.
Re: HighPoint RocketRaid 3522 Problems by Randall Brown on May 27, 2008 at 12:14:38 pm
Today I am going to talk to Highpoint and see what they say. Luckily I sourced the drives locally for this very reason. I am going to see about getting a PC in here for the card update. Will post back, and if anyone else has this issue/ seen this let me know!
Re: HighPoint RocketRaid 3522 Problems by Randall Brown on May 27, 2008 at 8:38:14 pm
So I think we have found the issue. It looks like the problem was the block size, it was set for 256k and for some reason was not working. It would not work at 128 either, it was only at 64k where it worked. Now I am sure I am giving up performance which is an annoyance, but the system has past the first few hang-ups that had crippled it and tests out in the high 300MB/s read and write (5 drive array uninitialized yet for performance)
A couple of things from this experience.
1. Seagate customer service was alright, had a Level 2 on the phone in 5 minutes, we went through all the drive potential issues, and came up clean. Their official final perspective though was that these drives dont have the error correction in them to operate in a group larger than 2 or 3 and they recommended i move to enterprise drives. Though they washed their hands of it, it didnt seem to be their issues since the drives worked out.
2. Highpoint tech support SUCKS, really really sucks. The guy didnt know anything about the card nor the options in the management software, and all he could do was say he would talk to engineering and see if they knew anything. Now though I am just posting this here now, I submitted a ticket last week with them, and their follow-up was non-existent.
3. Other World Computing was AWESOME (thats where I purchased the card). Their tech actually knew the card quite well, and knew a lot about RAID architectures. We figured out that the issue didnt happen in RAID 0,1, nor 3, just 5. It was stepping through some items with him that got us to the block size, and have us up and running right now. They were also ready to ship another card out just in case as well.
So for those considering rolling your own, its probaly going to be fine, but if its not, be ready to be left in the cold to figure it out. Luckily i have fiber here and this was a non-mission critical attempt. But there is something for having one person to call who would take responsibility for issues like this.
For those considering the 3522, i am at this point a bit concerned about trusting it. I will post back once i have had a chance to put it through the paces. Highpoint did say that these drives were now certified to be compatible (7200.11 1TB), but I would probably go with the Samsungs to do it all over again. The case and cables are certified, so this should have worked.
Re: HighPoint RocketRaid 3522 Problems by Scott Thomas on May 30, 2008 at 11:23:00 pm
I have the RocketRaid 3522. I went with the iAge case and populated it with 8 500GB Seagate 7200.11 drives. I went with RAID 6 and let the block size at 64k. I've not had the problems you've described.
I thought about experimenting with the block size, but I never got back to that.
Re: HighPoint RocketRaid 3522 Problems by Nils Fridén on Jun 9, 2008 at 8:30:31 am
I run into exactly the same problem, but the weird thing is that it worked perfectly for about two weeks. After two weeks and 10 min, (were the last ten minutes was the time it took my client to give me final approval for some major online work.) I could no longer collect or copy my media. Sure I had backups, but it would had taken days of tedious work get everything back in order. Since I had nothing to lose, I used the migration function to change the raid from 128k to 64k block size without reformat. This took about 40 hours or so. Now my raid is working perfectly again and all media seems to have survived the migration. The info in your post saved me a major headache and about a week of work. Thank you very much!
Re: HighPoint RocketRaid 3522 Problems by Randall Brown on Jun 9, 2008 at 4:05:51 pm
glad it helped you, but I would still keep up with your judicious backups, there is something wrong here. as now I am having even more issues. Until I can get it sorted I am using the Fibre stuff, but this is concerning.
My array worked fine as well for a couple of weeks before these issues. The switch to 64k worked for a while, but now the issues are back. I have now migrated to RAID 0 to see if that helps, but I am staring at a spinning beachball in final cut right now as I type this, so its not looking good.
A couple of questions for you.
1. What drives (Brand and size) and firmware are you using?
2. What RAID Level are you running?
3. RAID Block size, I see its now 64k before that it was 128k, did you ever go larger?
Their tech support is RIDICULOUS. Its really unfortunate, this seems like the killer card. I will update once I figure out this latest round of issues.
Re: HighPoint RocketRaid 3522 Problems by Nils Fridén on Jun 9, 2008 at 6:40:07 pm
Thanks for the warning. I almost thought I was out of trouble after the migration.
I'm running 8 x 750GB Samung drives in RAID 5 (SAMSUNG HD753LJ, Rev. 1AA01108)
I tested the volume with 256k, 128k and 64k when setting up. After testing i settled for 128k and did a complete reformat in 128k. Worked great for about two weeks until last thursday when suddenly all file transfers or collect using FCP/Shake would freeze the finder or app after about 500MB or so. I havent changed or updated anything on my system during this period.
Re: HighPoint RocketRaid 3522 Problems by Randall Brown on Jun 10, 2008 at 3:06:37 am
just a quick update. I got through to someone at highpoint who has been VERY helpful, but still no resolution, yet. I will post back once we have something final figured out.
Re: HighPoint RocketRaid 3522 Problems by Jonathan Sager on Jul 21, 2008 at 7:54:44 am
I just bought the 3522 and am having the same problem. I am using 8 Samsung 1TB RAID edition drives (HE103UJ's) with an EnhanceTech 8-drive Multi-Link enclosure- Its formatted in RAID6 with a 256K stripe. I have not updated the firmware on my card. My system locks up when i render large numbers of 2K tiff or dpx files. I was excited to hear that the 64K block size made things better... then dissapointed to hear the problems recurred after a few weeks. I am a week off of starting a project that requires the full use of the RAID and am starting to get suspicious of the 3522 after only having it for a couple of days. Its caused a catastrophic crash twice now. I need to render hundreds of tiffs a day for the next couple of months and need a controller up to the task. Anyone had any luck?
Re: HighPoint RocketRaid 3522 Problems by Randall Brown on Jul 21, 2008 at 2:47:03 pm
I still have not resolved this. I am in the process of RMAing the card. at this point I would NOT reco this card. I have Fiber, so I just sat the case and drives to the side and am working off fiber.
I do think this is a driver or firmware problem since writes work just fine. Maybe its connected to all the problems caldigit had perfecting their card to market. Who knows, but this thing is not a sound choice right now in my eyes.
I will update as i trouble shoot further, but i just dont have the time to mess with it everyday. let me know if you get your situation sorted.
Re: HighPoint RocketRaid 3522 Problems by Mark Keck on Jul 29, 2008 at 9:58:23 pm
Randall,
I've been looking for info on the 3522 and ran across this thread. I know you said you'd update once you knew... and I don't want to be a pest... but it's been 8 days and I'm wondering if you've gotten any thing new on this???
Re: HighPoint RocketRaid 3522 Problems by Jonathan Sager on Jul 29, 2008 at 10:25:13 pm
This card is junk... I just got an RMA for mine. In the meanwhile i got an Areca 1221x. Even this card has its problems. It locks up my system when i attempt to format an array in RAID6 (locks up during initialization, may work fine once its initialized, maybe not. I didnt want to wait to find out and just switched to RAID5) but seems to work fine in RAID5. It comes recommended for use with my octo 3.0ghz 2007 mac pro and OSX 10.5.3 by the guys at Enhance Tech. (Great company by the way.) I had the guys at Enhance help me out and they couldnt get the 3552 to work... Highpoint shipped them a new beta version of the card and a new beta driver and I am still waiting to hear whether the new card will work or not. Actually... I am not waiting to hear anything about HighPoint. I will never buy their products again. If i have any problems (other than the RAID6 one above) with the Areca 1221x i will post them in a new thread. So to sum up the general tone of this thread- stay away from the Highpoint 3552.
Re: HighPoint RocketRaid 3522 Problems by Randall Brown on Aug 1, 2008 at 3:35:51 pm
My card is still sitting to the side. I have been working 12 hour days lately, so I dont have the time to card and fax the form back. Per the poster above he had better luck with Acerca. I will post once I have time to get this sorted, but they dont advance ship and its a 3 stage process to get the card back. For a professional this is simply too much. It pisses me off that they got so many good reviews everywhere. But as I write this, i should probaly go fax that form in.
Re: HighPoint RocketRaid 3522 Problems by Jonathan Sager on Aug 2, 2008 at 2:04:09 am
I just got this email from Enhance Tech regarding the 3522:
Hi Jonathan,
Just want to give you some updates on the HighPoint 3522.
Currently the 3522 is running good after updating the new driver and firmware from HighPoint. Hope you haven’t thrown the card to the trash can. We can update the firmware for you if you want so you can use it later on for other storage device. Let me know.
Have a great weekend.
So if you are wondering how to make your card work, the answer is in the firmware. I'll find out more on the firmware revision that Enhance used and post here. Hope someone out there finds this useful. I however have already RMA'd my 3522.
Re: HighPoint RocketRaid 3522 Problems by Greg Tiller on Aug 3, 2008 at 2:11:13 am
Hi John,
I just purchased a 3522 myself and although I am not a Final Cut user, I am having similar problems.
I just created a 4 drive raid5 array in 10.5.4 using the driver on HPT's website and was attempting to clone my regular partition onto the newly created riad5 using carbon copy cloner, I find that shortly after booting, when spotlight was attempting to index the file system, it would cause weird glitches.. mouse would get really fast then stop responding then back to normal, endlessly.. system becomes essentially unresponsive.
This sounds similar to your situation.. maybe not identical, but we may both be experiencing the same root cause.
Would you be willing to send me this firmware that fixes your problem? I'll give it a try.
BTW how did you get in touch with highpoint tech? Do you have a contact to accelerate the process?
Re: HighPoint RocketRaid 3522 Problems by Jonathan Sager on Aug 3, 2008 at 10:17:36 pm
I'll probably hear back from Patrick at Enhance Monday. They have a direct line of contact to Highpoint at Enhance Tech. Highpoint might have sent them beta firmware and drivers that are not available on their site yet... Enhance has been of great help to me, I can highly recommend them for their products and support.
Re: HighPoint RocketRaid 3522 Problems by Jonathan Sager on Aug 4, 2008 at 6:53:58 pm
1.2.16.21 is apparently the firmware that Enhance is having luck with. It looks like the newest firmware that HPT has available is v1.2.13.25
Contact HPT and ask them about this revision.
Re: HighPoint RocketRaid 3522 Problems by Greg Tiller on Aug 12, 2008 at 1:07:58 am
Installed the new firmware. Fixes my problems for the most part.
The real problem is that I am using WD desktop (Caviar SE-16 aka 500AAKS) drives. These do not work well in a RAID setup.
At least the new firmware lets me use the array, and its stable. I still see a bit of freezing every now and then but at least now it recovers all the time unlike before.
Next I will be going with 4 Seagate Baracude Es.2 drives. According to HPT they work perfectly and are designed for 24/7 operation.
Re: HighPoint RocketRaid 3522 Problems by Jarvis Smerd on Aug 16, 2008 at 2:03:51 am
I downloaded "RR3522-1.2.16.21.zip" from the HighPoint web site... can I install just the "rr3522-firmware.blf" file via the in-band management software, or do I really need to take the card of out my Mac and put it in a PC so I can run 'flashelf.exe' from a pure DOS environment?
I'm hesitant to even think about updating the BIOS since it says "EFI binaries removed in standard BIOS release ... EFI support will be released in a separate package."
But I'm also weary of problems that may be caused by the firmware rev not matching the BIOS?
Also, any idea what "rr3522-loader.blf" is? "rr3522-bios.blf" is obviously the BIOS and "rr3522-firmware.blf" is obviously the firmware, just not sure what the loader file is for (and the Readme file doesn't provide any help.)
Any suggestions or assistance is greatly appreciated!
Re: HighPoint RocketRaid 3522 Problems by Jarvis Smerd on Aug 26, 2008 at 1:04:19 pm
Anybody know when HighPoint will update the Mac-side (hptmac.com) with a newer version of the EFI bios? (1.2.16.21 is in the .zip file on the "PC" side, but I don't want to risk using that and making the card not work the my Mac!)
Re: HighPoint RocketRaid 3522 Problems by Jarvis Smerd on Aug 26, 2008 at 3:27:04 pm
I tried. But HighPoint's support leaves a lot to be desired.
It seemed like some of the folks who were previously active in this topic had "other connections" that might be able to provide some details since I can't get them from HighPoint.
Re: HighPoint RocketRaid 3522 Problems by Mark Keck on Aug 26, 2008 at 8:28:12 pm
Jarvis,
I'm not sure I can help you... I'm just a want-a-be 3522 owner. However, what you're painting is not a pretty picture. Anyway, I'm going to do a little digging, I'll let you know if I come up with anything.
Re: HighPoint RocketRaid 3522 Problems by Jarvis Smerd on Aug 27, 2008 at 1:39:47 am
HighPoint tech support did get back with me (so my comment about "leaving a lot to be desired" was a little harsh in retrospect!) I asked when a Mac compatible update with the newer firmware would be available. Here was their reply:
The PC update can also be used with your card.
Download the update (,zip format), and extract it to a new folder (desktop may be the easiest to locate).
Open the Web interface, and select Manage - Devices.
Towards the bottom of this screen, you will see a Firmware Update option.
Use browse to locate the new folder.
Update using all three .blf files, in this order:
loader
BIOS
firmware
Then, reboot the system.
I also asked the ReadMe indicating that the PC BIOS did not have the EFI BIOS and they said:
the EFI version is only necessary if you intend to boot from the card.
So I intend to give it a whirl in the next day or two...
Re: HighPoint RocketRaid 3522 Problems by Jarvis Smerd on Sep 2, 2008 at 7:28:54 pm
Just wanted to follow-up and say that the upgrade to the new firmware rev (as described above) went smoothly.
So far the system seems more stable -- I was previously getting sporadic hard lock-ups during heavy read activity from the RAID-6 volume on the 3522. Since the firmware upgrade, that hasn't happened, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the issue is resolved...
Re: HighPoint RocketRaid 3522 Problems by Randall Brown on Sep 14, 2008 at 1:50:03 pm
Hi Jarvis and others with a working 3522,
Can you try one thing for me. Can you copy a folder of media >20GB off the drive and on to another drive on your system, or a network drive. And let me know if it works?
THe new firmware has helped, but still having this specfic issue. Also, Jarvis are you using the Samsungs or the Seagates? If so, the ES or the regular drives?
Re: HighPoint RocketRaid 3522 Problems by Ben King on Oct 22, 2008 at 10:18:33 pm
Hey guys
I was following this thread and saw all the issues just as I bought mine! :(
I have exactly the same issues with lock-up on large/long reads (no issues on write)
I have the1.2.16.21 firmware
I have tested with 1TB Samsung Spinpoints F1s AND the New 1.5TB Seagate Barracudas and both have exactly the same issues!
Grrrrr
I was wondering if all the electronics (PCB trace, etc) either side of the cable connectors might cause some degradation in the signal between devices if they measure the controller chip to HDD as the total length between devices...
I have two 3m Multilane SFF8088 TO Multilane SFF8088 connections
SAS can have a maximum cable length of 8m (25 feet) so I would think it should be fine, however I read an article on the MegaRAID SAS 8344ELP Controller stating that:
"there are 9 inches of PCB trace (electrical lines on the controller) between the I/O engine and the external connector. This is equuivalent to nine feet, or 2.7 meters of external cabling..."
Re: HighPoint RocketRaid 3522 Problems by Mark Keck on Oct 31, 2008 at 9:32:46 pm
Jarvis,
If you're still monitoring this thread... can you provide an update to how your system is working??? Any issues??? Do you have the large file reading issue that Randell is seeing???
Re: HighPoint RocketRaid 3522 Problems by Ben King on Oct 31, 2008 at 11:22:35 pm
Well...
I've been in touch with Highpoint's Tech support and they say its probably a defective card... I get anyone else here having the same issue would be advised to get theirs replaced too.
However they are extremely slow at responding and their returns department in need of a serious course in basic english, basic operational processes and efficiency.
You will probably wait days for them to get back to you even when asking for something as simple as an address to return the card to!
I'm still trying to resolve this and will be forced to spend $200+ on shipping as Highpoint don't ship to/from the UK.
So if you can get an RMA from the place you bought it I would, or better still, get your money back and buy your hardware from CalDigit to cheer yourself up and never have to deal with charlatans again!
"You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus!"
~ Mark Twain
