One of three hard drives on RAID array failed- can't find original model- what should I be looking for in a hard drive?

jeff123816

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So I have had a serial RAID card running an array for several years. Each of the three hard drives is the following model:

Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3750640A 750GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache IDE Ultra ATA100 / ATA-6 3.5" Hard Drive Bare Drive

Now, one of the drives has failed and needs to be replaced. I'm finding that there are no longer many ATA100 drives being made any more. I am, in fact, a little confused as to what ATA100 even means. I gather that it is the cable interface. The RAID card is very old. As I said, it is connected to the only serial port on the board. I've got a 2 TB USB drive that I've backed my data on to, but I guess I've got two questions:


    Is it worth locating another compatible hard drive and reestablishing an array? Or should I simply purchase one large (2TB) internal drive and then use Windows to run daily backups to the external?


    If maintaining the array is best, what sort of hard drive should I be looking for, given the above specifications of the other two?


This forum is great, by the way. Thanks to everyone for your help!
 
Solution
Well you have three old 750GB drives and one has failed. Knowing all drives fail at some point you have to wonder how much life the other two drives have left. I expect not much. I vote for your 2TB with backups option.
You can find Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3750640A drives on eBay, but few 750GB IDE drives are available; motherboards and RAID controllers have switched to SATA a long time ago. You shouldn't run a degraded RAID. You either repalce the failed drive or switch to a non-RAID installation. Does your system support 2TB drives?
 

jeff123816

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I didn't know that there were any limitations to drive sizes. My motherboard is about 5 years old. I'm running a first generation core i3 with 4 gb RAM and 64 bit Windows 7. I use the machine as an HTPC. Is there something that would prevent me from using a 2 tb internal drive?





 
I asked about hard disk support because you are using an IDE RAID controller which has to be more than 5 years old, but your motherboard definitely supports 2TB drives. You didn't specify which motherboard you have, but it probably supports RAID 0, 1, 5 and 10 using SATA hard disks.
 

S Haran

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Jul 12, 2013
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Well you have three old 750GB drives and one has failed. Knowing all drives fail at some point you have to wonder how much life the other two drives have left. I expect not much. I vote for your 2TB with backups option.
 
Solution