Raid 1 Hardware Rebuild Extremely Slow

[Rengoku]

Perhaps someone can share some insight into this.

I have a 2 x 500GB drives that are set up as Raid 1 with Intel's Embedded Raid on an Intel motherboard.

I'm trying to replace both drives, so I went ahead and swapped out one of the older drives, and put in a new one and started the rebuild - this process only took about 1.5 hrs.

After that, I took out the 2nd older drive, and replaced it so I could rebuild onto the 2nd new drive. The weird thing is, this time round, it's been about 2.5 hrs and its only gone up to 5%.

Is this a normal?

If it helps, I'm doing the rebuild in the Bios utility, not in windows.

 

[GhislainG]

It isn't normal. To determine if the 2nd new drive is defective, try to:

1. Remove the 2nd new drive an replace it by an old drive to see if the rebuild speed is normal (if it is, then let it complete);
2. If step 1 is successful, remove the 1st new drive and replace it by the 2nd new drive. If the rebuild is slow, then you know that the 2nd new drive is defective.

EDIT: Unless you already have a complete backup, make sure that you always have at least one RAID member that's working fine.

 

[Rengoku]

Best answer selected by Rengoku.

 

[Rengoku]

Thanks for the advice. I tried removing the drive, reseating it, replaced with an old drive, and it was still very slow. Finally i decided to try replace the sata cable, and success! I guess it was just the cable that was faulty.

It isn't normal. To determine if the 2nd new drive is defective, try to:

1. Remove the 2nd new drive an replace it by an old drive to see if the rebuild speed is normal (if it is, then let it complete);
2. If step 1 is successful, remove the 1st new drive and replace it by the 2nd new drive. If the rebuild is slow, then you know that the 2nd new drive is defective.

EDIT: Unless you already have a complete backup, make sure that you always have at least one RAID member that's working fine.