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RAID Re-building and other RAID questions

Tags:
  • NAS / RAID
  • Storage Management
  • Storage
Last response: in Storage
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September 23, 2014 9:20:03 PM

Recently I have been running a RAID 1 setup for my files using the Intel RAID chipset that is in my Asus P9X79 Pro motherboard. Today when I rebooted I noticed during boot up that the RAID screen was saying that the RAID was degraded and that an Error occurred on the second disk. I bought a new disk and swapped out the "bad" one. The screen told me that the RAID would rebuild within Windows.

Great stuff. How long does it take for a two-disk RAID 1 setup to rebuild? Each disk is 3TB; both are Seagate drives, as was the "bad" one. How do I know when it's done, and can I reboot before it finishes?

I have Intel Rapid Storage Technology Enterprise installed, and its WMI COM Configuration Server is currently running in the task manager at about 14% CPU usage. The thing is, I cannot get the RSTe Windows program to run. It would appear in the hidden icon area in the Task Bar, but would say it's not running. Trying to re-install it gave me errors saying it does not support my platform (Windows 8.1), even though I downloaded the version for my OS. The RAID mode in the BIOS is set to RSTe. At the moment there is nothing listed in the Services that it could be as far as I can tell, nor does the program start up anymore. I don't know if that's because the RAID is still rebuilding or not. I am completely new to RAIDs. Once it is done rebuilding, I would like to be able to get RSTe running so I can monitor the RAID from Windows instead of during reboots.

On a side note, that "bad" disk turned out not to be bad at all. There was nothing wrong with it. It passed SeaTools and everything on it was accessible when I put it into an external enclosure and changed its status to online in Disk Management. So what do I do next time if the RAID degrades like it did today that does not involve buying another drive?

More about : raid building raid questions

a c 388 G Storage
September 24, 2014 6:19:03 AM

Rebuild time varies depending on the drive size and raid controller. The RST software will normally tell you how far along the rebuild is. Unfortunately you say yours isn't working. During rebuild, your hard drive LED should be lit up fairly solid. If it's occasionally blinking, it could be finished.

Your bad drive that turned out not to be bad is most likely due to the drive's error recovery taking too long. I beleive the WD Red drives use TLER to get around this problem. Hopefully a WD rep can jump in and answer this for us. I know the WD RE (Raid Edition) drives do.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Error_recovery_control
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a b G Storage
September 24, 2014 6:47:17 AM

Hey there guys,

I have to agree with @Hawkeye22!
Your supposedly bad drive, @eday_2010, acts like one because of its error recovery taking too long.
That's why there are specific HDDs for NAS/RAID systems.
Both WD Red and WD RE drives have the TLER feature which can prevent these HDDs from dropping from the array due to the extended error recovery. Basically this gives you more availability and less down time for the RAID to rebuild.
Here are the links to the drives, where you can check their advantages:
WD Red - http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=810
WD RE - http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=580

Hope I helped. :) 
SuperSoph_WD
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September 24, 2014 11:49:20 AM

If it's a case of error recovery time only, then I can easily solve that by pulling the drive out, attaching it via external enclosure or the SATA bay on my case,killing the partition and putting it back. And if it keeps happening, I'll have to find another method of backing up, like some program running in the background syncing stuff nightly.

My drives are 3TB drives (2.6 TB usable), with about 1TB free. I am not sure how long that takes to rebuild. Is it safe to reboot during rebuilding?

The next, more important issue is getting Intel's RST Enterprise running in Windows so I can monitor things. Once the RAID is rebuilt I will try getting it to run. I have seem a lot of other people having problems getting it running, but no clear cut solution to fixing the problem.
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a c 388 G Storage
September 24, 2014 12:06:11 PM

Sometimes deleting the partition isn't good enough. If this is the case, run diskpart and use the clean command on that drive. Of course it may still drop out in the future.

If the RAID has the OS on it, I'd play it safe and let it finish the rebuild, otherwise it should be safe to reboot. A raid 1 rebuild won't take as long as a raid 5 setup since there is no xor caclulations to do. It's basically a sync/copy.

Sorry, I don't know what's hanging up your RST install.
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September 24, 2014 12:42:39 PM

No, the RAID is simple the drive(s) I keep my files on. The OS and programs are on their own SSD.

Hopefully someone else can help with RST. I will probably have to go to Intel's forums for help.
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a b G Storage
September 28, 2014 11:15:19 PM

Hey, @eday_2010!

Feel free to share here after you find out how to monitor your RAID with Intel's RST Enterprise in Windows!
A lot of people are using NAS/RAID systems nowadays and they are building the arrays by themselves.
Since a lot of those users are turning to Tom's Hardware for solutions, I think they will find your information pretty useful.

Good luck!
SuperSoph_WD
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