RAID failing with 2 possible choices

[adabo]

I'm a little worried about the messages that Intel Matrix Storage is giving "A Drive in RAID 0 volume reports that it may fail. Please back it up." Well, I've since rebooted into the seatools dos mode and did the long scan and it repaired 80 or so blocks. A day later, same thing, so I long scanned and it fixed more. I did an experiment and ran the long scan right after the last one, and it found more errors. So I repaired them.


All along however the computer has be running fine, the OS fine, nothing that would have gave me the impression the drive was going bad, until one day I couldn't delete a file. That's when I installed the Intel Matrix storage and it tells me my RAID is failing.



Here is the summary of the notification:



Hard Drive 1
Usage: Array member
Status: SMART event
Device Port: 1
Device Port Location: Internal
Current Serial ATA Transfer Mode: Generation 2
Model: ST3320620AS
Serial Number: 6QG377Z8
Firmware: 3.AAK
Native Command Queuing Support: Yes
Hard Drive Data Cache Enabled: Yes
Size: 298 GB
Physical Sector Size: 512 Bytes
Logical Sector Size: 512 Bytes
Number of Volumes: 1
Volume Member 1: RAIDXPProFull
Parent Array: Array_0000



Now the status is not "Error" but "SMART event". Who knows whatever that is?



The question is, is now the time to backup? If so, do I reboot into a disktool and make an image clone of the bade drive and put it on a new drive? Somehow I think that won't work, But it does sound like it could. Or do just get a bigger drive than what the RAID volume is and backup everything there?



--------

Dual boot - Win7, WinXPPro

RAID 0

--Port0 - ST3320620AS 298GB

--Port1 - ST3320620AS 298GB


Thanks in advance,

Adabo

 

[sub mesa]

If you are talking about bad blocks, as listed by the SMART info data as "Reallocated Sector Count", that would mean your disk is failing and you should replace it. If the Reallocated Sector Count keeps increasing steadily, it won't be long until the reserve sector pool has run out and you will get unrepairable bad sectors on your disk. So yes, backup now. You should have a backup anyway for your data, especially with RAID0.

 

[adabo]

I should have rebooted to see the message. Well, I took a snapshot of the error, and it does say block at the top.

I'm really sorry, but some of what you said went over my head. The main thing I understand is to back up. I knew from the start RAID0 is a risky setup, but I'm somewhat in the position to take risks.

Thanks for the help, and any further suggestions would be nice.

 

[sub mesa]

Your disk is failing, its number of bad sectors is likely increasing which is a sign your drive might drop dead pretty soon. Its possible it will keep running for a long time, but with file corruption which you don't want.

So backup everything while you still can, or you will loose everything on the RAID0 volume. That's pretty straightforward, isn't it?

Now in the future, always make sure you have a backup. If you want RAID0, make two of them, one being a backup. If possible this backup should be on another machine in the same network (LAN). That would protect also against power failures from your power supply and additional causes which can make your data disappear.