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I have a server with an 8 drive eSATA enclosure attached. I have two volumes on the external controller: a RAID5 array that uses 6 of the drives and a RAID1 arrray that uses 2.

The system is occasionally restarted due to the environment. I can't resolve this issue.

Unfortunately, when the system comes back online, the disks on the external enclosure all appear in Disk Manager as Foreign disks. I can successfully restore them to operation by issuing an "Import Foreign Disks" command and waiting forever for them to resync.

I'd like to host a couple of VMs on the volumes on the enclosure but it's quite problematic to do so when the enclosure doesn't come online with the rest of the system after reboot. What can I do to encourage the system to recognize this disks when the system powers back up so that I do not have to import the disks every time we've experienced a significant power issue?

antik
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  • Are you using a controller card with *Less than Well Supported™* drivers? Does the enclosure use a SAS Expander, SATA Port Multiplier, or none of the above? – Chris S Jul 12 '11 at 17:26
  • I believe it's a SATA Port Multiplier. I'm using the driver's from the controller card vendor's website... not sure how robust they are. – antik Jul 12 '11 at 20:44
  • And the Card Vendor is? Someone reputable like 3ware, Adaptec, LSI, IBM, HP, Dell? – Chris S Jul 12 '11 at 21:32
  • Card vendor is a Silicon Image SiI 3132 SATALink running driver v.1.0.15.6. – antik Aug 23 '11 at 12:54

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maybe you should use GPT partitioning table, instead of MBR with dynamic disks so it can be always recognized, regardless to where is connected (or not) :).

Hrvoje Kusulja
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