By Philip Churchill on March 14th, 2008
AnandTech – Data Corruption due to Faulty Algorithm in the Drive Extender software
The IT source for hardware analysis and industry news AnandTech has a look at the data corruption bug in a more technical light taking us through the Drive Extender technology. What you shall read is a mixture of things they know for sure, along with some educated guessing based on what sources told them. They conclude that the bug is due to a faulty algorithm in the Drive Extender software.
Read WHS: A Series of Unfortunate Events on AnandTech.
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I think Drive Extender is pretty obviously the cause of the problem, because there are no issues if you don’t use it. Based on my experience with the problem, it’s a bug with the synchronization / replication of two copies across multiple drives. They are not synced immediately (the way they would be on RAID 1.) This leads to two versions of the same file that are both being modified in an asynchronous manner. I’ll be glad when this bug is gone.
Why didn’t this get caught during the multiple beta phases? I ran a slow (Via C3) multidrive system for months without any problem. Did they change something in Drive Extender since RC1?
According to the article the exact situation that leads to the corrution is pretty rare – the sort of problem that would not always come up in a limited beta test, or if it does it gets incorrectly attributed to something else.
I have indeed been running WHS on 2 drives for some months and have not come across it yet.
“faulty algorithm in the Drive Extender software” which is Microsoft’s fault! WHS DE has a design flaw, and needs to be fixed. Just how much time does it take to fix the problem?
It’s been more than a year since the beginning of beta testing. It’s been 5 months since WHS was sold as a final complete working software program as RTM and OEM. And now that Microsoft cannot escape the fact that it’s underlying core and foundation base code known as WHS Drive Extender has a design flaw, isn’t it long over due and time to actually fix this once and for all?
The faulty algorithm in the Drive Extender software is effectively an unstable sort. Microsoft has estimated that the fix will not be ready for another 3 months (June) and while it’s unlikely for this to take less time it can certainly take more.
As of right now retailers are still selling OEM servers with 2+ drives (making them susceptible to the bug) and computer enthusiast retailers are still selling the OS itself, all with no notice about this bug.
“It’s been more than a year since the beginning of beta testing. It’s been 5 months since WHS was sold as a final complete working software program as RTM and OEM. And now that Microsoft cannot escape the fact that it’s underlying core and foundation base code known as WHS Drive Extender has a design flaw, isn’t it long over due and time to actually fix this once and for all?”
Um, I believe that’s exactly what they’re trying to do – hence the June release date, as opposed to rushing a quick fix out now.