Apparently Western Digital 180GB & 200GB harddrives tend to drop from an IDE RAID array after several days or weeks of operation. The company is offering a fix for this odd behaviour deeply hidden in their FAQ's. Affected drives are: WD2000BB (WD Caviar 7200 2MB 200 GB) WD2000JB (WD Caviar 7200 Special Edition 8MB 200 GB) WD1800BB (WD Caviar 7200 2MB 180 GB) WD1800JB (WD Caviar 7200 Special Edition 8MB 180 GB)



The problem is a result of a feature that reduces idle acoustic noise in desktop drives. This feature can cause a timeout in a IDE RAID environment. To disable the feature, you can run a simple Western Digital utility to turn off a single bit in the drive?s run-time configuration. Disabling of this feature will NOT impact normal system operations in a RAID environment. No firmware or hardware changes are required. 3Ware controller cards:
If you are using one or more 3Ware controller cards your IDE RAID configuration, download the IDE RAID Compatibility Upgrade Utility for 3Ware 7500-X controllers cards. Non-3Ware controller cards:
If you are using a 3Ware controller card ALONG with other controller cards in your RAID configuration or if you are using only one controller card that's not made by 3Ware, download the IDE RAID Compatibility Upgrade Utility for non-3Ware controller cards for the Desktop PC.