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Thread ID: 119653 2011-08-03 00:12:00 RAID 1 Question..... Billy T (70) Press F1
Post ID Timestamp Content User
1220621 2011-08-03 00:12:00 Hi Team

I had a spontaneous RAID 1 drive rebuild this morning, following a hard reboot necessitated by my booting while the mouse and keyboard were connected to my old W2K machine via the KVM switch. :(

This event is making me a little nervous because I don't have a spare disk at present. Computer Lounge owes me a warranty replacement after the most recent failure, and there are no problems with that aspect, but apparently they can't get WD640GB Caviar Black drives anymore.

So, am I right in thinking that a RAID 1 drive can be replaced by any other drive of the same or larger capacity? In a RAID 1 (mirrored) system it shouldn't make any difference and the Help file in the RAID console seems to confirm that.

However (there is always a catch with computers) what would happen if say the smaller (and older) of the two drives had a hiccup like this morning?

Would the larger drive still be able to restore to the older smaller drive? If not, I might need to replace both disks at the same time to ensure equal capacity is maintained.

Cheers

Billy 8-{)
Billy T (70)
1220622 2011-08-03 00:35:00 Many raid controllers will accept different sized drives, and the requirement is only that the drive have sufficient space to hold the required partition size. inphinity (7274)
1220623 2011-08-03 01:05:00 Software Raid/ motherboard built in RAID controllers are crap, I'd use shadow protect desktop edition if I was you and do incremental backups during the day. Alex B (15479)
1220624 2011-08-03 01:06:00 wouldnt one of those WD green drives be a better solution for you, arent they more reliable than the black drives?? GameJunkie (72)
1220625 2011-08-03 01:21:00 Software Raid/ motherboard built in RAID controllers are crap, I'd use shadow protect desktop edition if I was you and do incremental backups during the day.

Thanks, but no thanks, I prefer the RAID 1 system that keeps me up to date and any other back-up program but Shadow Protect! I tried to understand its instructions, and I'm not dumb, but it was way too complex and expensive for my needs. There are other programs for incremental backups that seem to be much simpler to use.

Cheers

Billy 8-{)
Billy T (70)
1220626 2011-08-03 02:15:00 Hi Team

I had a spontaneous RAID 1 drive rebuild this morning, following a hard reboot necessitated by my booting while the mouse and keyboard were connected to my old W2K machine via the KVM switch. :(

This event is making me a little nervous because I don't have a spare disk at present. Computer Lounge owes me a warranty replacement after the most recent failure, and there are no problems with that aspect, but apparently they can't get WD640GB Caviar Black drives anymore.

So, am I right in thinking that a RAID 1 drive can be replaced by any other drive of the same or larger capacity? In a RAID 1 (mirrored) system it shouldn't make any difference and the Help file in the RAID console seems to confirm that.

However (there is always a catch with computers) what would happen if say the smaller (and older) of the two drives had a hiccup like this morning?

Would the larger drive still be able to restore to the older smaller drive? If not, I might need to replace both disks at the same time to ensure equal capacity is maintained.

Cheers

Billy 8-{)

The size of the RAID array is created when you 1st build it, whether of 2 different sizes or not....If a smaller drive fails, the array will not increase to the size of the larger, so would have no problem rebuilding a smaller drive as long as its big enough for the array size
SolMiester (139)
1220627 2011-08-03 02:17:00 wouldnt one of those WD green drives be a better solution for you, arent they more reliable than the black drives??

You are NOT supposed to use green drives in ANY raid array period. They are not built for it....and it even stipulates it on WD website....

I wouldnt use black drives either, the most reliable are the blue drives.
SolMiester (139)
1220628 2011-08-03 02:22:00 Thanks, but no thanks, I prefer the RAID 1 system that keeps me up to date and any other back-up program but Shadow Protect! I tried to understand its instructions, and I'm not dumb, but it was way too complex and expensive for my needs. There are other programs for incremental backups that seem to be much simpler to use.

Cheers

Billy 8-{)


Can't say I found it that complex. (this is the desktop edition im talking about.).

The idea of RAID1 is great, but only if you have a proper RAID controller, otherwise IME they are simply not reliable.
Alex B (15479)
1220629 2011-08-03 02:53:00 but apparently they can't get WD640GB Caviar Black drives anymore.
That would be right - you can get 500MB, 1GB or 2GB.

Why use blacks anyway -- as you are fully aware, they have a HIGH failure rate, and are not really designed for a RAID setup. While they will work, they are extremely unreliable. As Sol suggested the Blues are far more reliable. But once again, not really designed for a RAID setup.

You would be far better off, and have more reliability with the sightly more expensive RAID edition drives, available in These sizes (www.imagef1.net.nz) (cant be bothered writing all that out :) )
wainuitech (129)
1220630 2011-08-03 03:10:00 wouldnt one of those WD green drives be a better solution for you, arent they more reliable than the black drives??

WD Green + RAID = BADDD, it does NOT mix well at all with their variable-speed eco crap.
inphinity (7274)
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