Adaptec recommends that all arrays configured with SATA disk drives use a vendor’s Enterprise class or RAID enabled SATA disk drive. Desktop class disk drives have an error recovery feature that will result in a continuous retry of the drive (read or write) when an error is encountered, such as a bad sector. In a RAID array this can cause the RAID controller to time-out while waiting for the drive to respond. At that time, the drive would drop out (fail) of the array, causing potential data loss.

Adaptec RAID controllers, like all RAID controllers, are designed to timeout a given command if the disk drive becomes unresponsive within a given time frame. The result will be that the drive will appear off line or will be marked bad and an alert will be given to the customer. Enterprise class drives, or drives designed for RAID environments, have a retry limit before a sector is marked bad. This retry limit enables the drive to respond to the RAID controller within the expected time frame. While desktop drives may work with a RAID controller, the array will progressively go off line as the disk drive ages. This condition may result in data loss.