Possible faulty hard drive in a raid

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wheels496

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Jun 10, 2007
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I have a Studio XPS8100, which I purchased around March 2010.

The PC has 2x1TB drives in a raid 0 configuration.

3 times over the past couple of weeks, Intel rapid storage reported an error with one of the arrays. The last time this happened, Tuesday, I right clicked and it gave me the option to fix. Not convinced it did anything, a green tick immediately appeared.

At no time have I had any operational issues, other than these 3 reports. Yesterday I ran a chkdsk and no errors found.

Figured out they were Seagate drives, so I downloaded seatools for DOS. I ran the long test, on both drives. First drive fine but second drive had 2 errors-2 bad sectors. The short test will not run at all on disk 2.

Any advice? If I should replace the second drive, how should I do that given that it’s a raid 0 configuration.



Thanks
 
Solution
SuperSoph_WD
Hi again, wheels496!

Well, in order for your RAID array to work properly, it's highly recommended to use identical drives. Even if the other drive is the same capacity, you'd get the speed of the slowest of the two HDDs. Basically, heterogeneous RAID configurations are a bad idea as there's always some sort of bottlenecking of the storage drives used (you get the size of the smallest drive in array, the speed of the slowest HDD, and all other capabilities of the weaker HDD). Thus, I'd recommend you to get an identical HDD with the one you already have in the system.
And of course, don't forget to back up the data as RAID 0 is rather risky.

Hope I helped! Good luck! :)
SuperSoph_WD
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SuperSoph_WD

SuperSoph_WD

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Jul 30, 2014
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Hey there, wheels496!

I'd strongly recommend you to RMA the hard drive and get a replacement from the manufacturer. Since you have a RAID 0 configuration, I believe you are aware of the dangers (If one HDD fails, you'd lose the data on both drives). I'd suggest you to back up your data elsewhere and replace the HDD. Basically, you'd need to re-build the array either way! Although, I think that it's better to rebuild it yourself now and save any important data, than to be forced to rebuild it after a failure in the array configuration and lose everything.

Once you have the replacement HDD and the RAID 0 setup is ready for use, you can simply copy back the data/ or re-install the software that you'd be using on it.

Better safe than sorry, right?
Hope this was helpful! Best of luck! :)
SuperSoph_WD
 
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wheels496

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Jun 10, 2007
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I am assuming I cannot return the drive.

Firstly, it was supplied with the PC therefore it's OEM-Dell UK.

Also presumably it's well outwith any warranty, as it's over 5 years old.

another question, if I replace it but wish to keep the raid, do the drives have to be identical or just similarly speced?

Thanks


 
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SuperSoph_WD

SuperSoph_WD

Glorious
Jul 30, 2014
6,758
3
45,960
Hi again, wheels496!

Well, in order for your RAID array to work properly, it's highly recommended to use identical drives. Even if the other drive is the same capacity, you'd get the speed of the slowest of the two HDDs. Basically, heterogeneous RAID configurations are a bad idea as there's always some sort of bottlenecking of the storage drives used (you get the size of the smallest drive in array, the speed of the slowest HDD, and all other capabilities of the weaker HDD). Thus, I'd recommend you to get an identical HDD with the one you already have in the system.
And of course, don't forget to back up the data as RAID 0 is rather risky.

Hope I helped! Good luck! :)
SuperSoph_WD
 
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