Disk starting to go

Chuck · 2013-05-08, 13:47

I have a Western Digital 600 Gb Raptor that is starting to go bad...it is one of two RAID mirrors of my OS disk. There is also a third D: that is used only by Windows Backup, which does a system image backup each morning at 2 AM. I began noticing this when the system started hanging at shutdown and startup. S.M.A.R.T. reports via Crystal Disk that the disk is in "caution" state. It has about 22,000 hours of power on time (2.5 years).

The RAID is accessible only at bootup via a CTRL-I. I accessed the RAID setup a couple of days ago to see what would happen if I took the bad disk out of the array — I got the "all data will be lost" and then it offered to rebuild the disk, which it did as the system continued to run.

A replacement disk is coming Monday and I am hoping that the rebuild onto a new disk will go smoothly, but I have the image backup and a startup DVD in case of trouble.

kladner · 2013-05-08, 14:15

I am glad you caught it, and that you are so well prepared to deal with a failure. I would do well to give more thought to such events. I almost wrote "the possibility of such events," but of course, it is not a matter of "if," but "when."

Aramis Wyler · 2013-05-08, 16:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by kladner

I am glad you caught it, and that you are so well prepared to deal with a failure. I would do well to give more thought to such events. I almost wrote "the possibility of such events," but of course, it is not a matter of "if," but "when."

/signed.
Good on you to mirror your drives. I have not ever been able to bring myself to mirror my drives, but instead stripe them for the increased speed and capacity. I do keep an exernal backup device and back up the raid set to it on tuesday nights, but my likelyhood of catastrophic hardware failure is higher (I have 4 disks) and I will never be able to rebuild one the way you can. I'll have to replace the disk and restore, a much more painfull solution. I very much hope my next motherboard will support raid 5, which I'd be a lot more comfortable with.

Chuck · 2013-05-08, 18:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aramis Wyler

Good on you to mirror your drives. I have not ever been able to bring myself to mirror my drives, but instead stripe them for the increased speed and capacity.

My network-attached disk is a Buffalo Terastation 4-disk unit I got six years ago. I originally started with RAID 5 (parity). It had 4 500 Gb Hitachi disks (they came with the unit). I did some minor hacking courtesy of the Buffalo forums and got telnet root access to the device. It runs Linux 2.6.16.16-arm1 (from uname -a). I upgraded it on the fly to 4 1 Gb WD enterprise disks. At that point there was so much space available that I reformatted and changed to RAID 10 (two stripes of two mirrors each). One of the original disks became my D: Windows backup disk.

When I replace it I think I will change to a QNAP Turbo NAS, but so far it is still working with no problems. It holds pictures and the mp3 files I make of my classical CD collection (the 9,000 CDs you see to the left in the avatar). I would like to have a unit with DLNA so I could access it from my big TV across the network.

Chuck · 2013-05-13, 14:40

The replacement disk arrived Monday morning and I swapped it out — it was picked up by the RAID array as available for rebuild and that process is running. I see the disk activity light and that is the only indication I have that the process is running. There seems to be no way to query the RAID status from the OS.

Now I'll just overwrite the failed disk and toss it.

Chuck · 2013-05-13, 19:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chuck

The replacement disk arrived Monday morning and I swapped it out — it was picked up by the RAID array as available for rebuild and that process is running. I see the disk activity light and that is the only indication I have that the process is running. There seems to be no way to query the RAID status from the OS.

The RAID rebuild took about three hours.

TheMawn · 2013-05-19, 02:58

Sorry to hi-jack a thread like this, but this whole topic got me into wondering...

How does one go about setting up RAID? I've always been rather terrified of the idea of the computer somehow "forgetting" that a certain disk is in an array or something like that. It's foolish, I know, but I've never bothered to look into it enough to know at which level RAID is handled.

I have a 128GB SSD for my operating system and my favourite programs. I frequently write an image of it to a 128GB partition of a 1TB drive, as my backup. The rest of that drive is whatever bits of the Users folder windows would allow me to move. I back up the contents of that to an external drive (that thing is so old thought that technically speaking my computer is probably a backup of it, lol). Finally, I have a 1TB drive for non-essential stuff, mainly games and other software I can easily re-install if a major catastrophe were to occur.

If I were ever to use a Raid Array, it would be to mirror the Games HDD, probably (save myself the hassle of reinstalling all that crap and extra read speed never hurt anyone). How does a person set that kind of thing up? Is it something that can be done sort of spur of the moment or is there a hellish process to start things off?

Chuck · 2013-05-20, 00:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheMawn

Sorry to hi-jack a thread like this, but this whole topic got me into wondering...

How does one go about setting up RAID? I've always been rather terrified of the idea of the computer somehow "forgetting" that a certain disk is in an array or something like that. It's foolish, I know, but I've never bothered to look into it enough to know at which level RAID is handled.

My RAID is built in to the ASUS motherboard; it is accessed and set up via a CTRL-I at boot time and that is the only access to it as far as I know. It is transparent to the OS.

NBtarheel_33 · 2013-05-20, 06:40

So when did Davieddy become a mod?

2013-05-08, 13:47	#1
Chuck May 2011 Orange Park, FL 13·71 Posts	Disk starting to go I have a Western Digital 600 Gb Raptor that is starting to go bad...it is one of two RAID mirrors of my OS disk. There is also a third D: that is used only by Windows Backup, which does a system image backup each morning at 2 AM. I began noticing this when the system started hanging at shutdown and startup. S.M.A.R.T. reports via Crystal Disk that the disk is in "caution" state. It has about 22,000 hours of power on time (2.5 years). The RAID is accessible only at bootup via a CTRL-I. I accessed the RAID setup a couple of days ago to see what would happen if I took the bad disk out of the array — I got the "all data will be lost" and then it offered to rebuild the disk, which it did as the system continued to run. A replacement disk is coming Monday and I am hoping that the rebuild onto a new disk will go smoothly, but I have the image backup and a startup DVD in case of trouble.

2013-05-13, 14:40	#5
Chuck May 2011 Orange Park, FL 13×71 Posts	Success The replacement disk arrived Monday morning and I swapped it out — it was picked up by the RAID array as available for rebuild and that process is running. I see the disk activity light and that is the only indication I have that the process is running. There seems to be no way to query the RAID status from the OS. Now I'll just overwrite the failed disk and toss it.

2013-05-19, 02:58	#7
TheMawn May 2013 East. Always East. 11010111111₂ Posts	RAID Sorry to hi-jack a thread like this, but this whole topic got me into wondering... How does one go about setting up RAID? I've always been rather terrified of the idea of the computer somehow "forgetting" that a certain disk is in an array or something like that. It's foolish, I know, but I've never bothered to look into it enough to know at which level RAID is handled. I have a 128GB SSD for my operating system and my favourite programs. I frequently write an image of it to a 128GB partition of a 1TB drive, as my backup. The rest of that drive is whatever bits of the Users folder windows would allow me to move. I back up the contents of that to an external drive (that thing is so old thought that technically speaking my computer is probably a backup of it, lol). Finally, I have a 1TB drive for non-essential stuff, mainly games and other software I can easily re-install if a major catastrophe were to occur. If I were ever to use a Raid Array, it would be to mirror the Games HDD, probably (save myself the hassle of reinstalling all that crap and extra read speed never hurt anyone). How does a person set that kind of thing up? Is it something that can be done sort of spur of the moment or is there a hellish process to start things off?

2013-05-20, 06:40	#9
NBtarheel_33 "Nathan" Jul 2008 Maryland, USA 5·223 Posts	Thread title change So when did Davieddy become a mod?

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2013-05-08, 14:15	#2
kladner "Kieren" Jul 2011 In My Own Galaxy! 27AE₁₆ Posts	I am glad you caught it, and that you are so well prepared to deal with a failure. I would do well to give more thought to such events. I almost wrote "the possibility of such events," but of course, it is not a matter of "if," but "when."