Bryan -

Yes, I guess that would be the safe bet - backup the data on a set of 2 TB 
drives and then go about fixing the server.  Not sure if I can get the wife to 
approve the cost of doing both.

Part of the issue is that I am at my current storage limit and wad planning on 
building a new system.  Just not now.

-----------
Brian

Sent from my iPhone

On 2011-03-08, at 4:16 PM, Bryan Seitz <[email protected]> wrote:

> With two 3TB HDs or 3 2TB hds :)
> 
> 
> On Tue, Mar 08, 2011 at 04:05:27PM -0500, Brian Weeden wrote:
>> Duncan -
>> 
>> The problem is how does one backup 6 TB of data?
>> 
>> -----------
>> Brian
>> 
>> Sent from my iPhone
>> 
>> On 2011-03-08, at 3:48 PM, DSinc <[email protected]> wrote:
>> 
>>> Brian,
>>> I'm no raid expert. Do I understand that:
>>> channel 3 HD reported failed?
>>> And, after checking the channel 3 hd offline,
>>> now channel 4 hd reports failed?
>>> 
>>> I would tell the raid controller to again format the
>>> channel 3 hd and see if you can re-integrate it to
>>> the array.
>>> 
>>> Even if in a degraded mode, backup your data ASAP.
>>> HTH,
>>> Duncan
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On 03/08/2011 13:53, Brian Weeden wrote:
>>>> I am having problems with the RAID array that holds all my media.  It is a
>>>> RAID 5 array with 8 1 TB drives, hosted on an Areca 1220 controller.  I 
>>>> have
>>>> about 6.2 TB of music, movies, TV shows, and photos on there.
>>>> 
>>>> On Friday I got a message that the drive on channel 3 had failed and the
>>>> array was degraded.  I got a replacement drive today, powered off the
>>>> machine, inserted the replacement drive, and powered up.  I went into the
>>>> RAID management software, set the new drive as a hot spare, and it started
>>>> rebuilding.  I watched it get to about 9% done and then went away and did
>>>> something else.
>>>> 
>>>> Coming back, I saw that the RAID management software now listed channel 3 
>>>> as
>>>> failed again (the new drive).  Puzzled, I popped the old "failed" drive 
>>>> into
>>>> my other machine and it spun right up.  I was able to format it and see it
>>>> in windows no problem.
>>>> 
>>>> I powered off the machine, re-attached the old drive, and powered it back
>>>> on.  During boot, the RAID card BIOS says that no RAID array is detected.
>>>> Now is where I start to get scared.  I power off, put the old drive back
>>>> in, and power on.  Now it detects the array, still in degraded state, but
>>>> says that Channel 4 is the bad drive.  I did not change any cables around.
>>>> 
>>>> Advice on what to do?  I really, REALLY do not want to lose this array and
>>>> all my data.  It would take me a long time to recover it all.  At this 
>>>> point
>>>> I am concerned that maybe the RAID card itself is bad, or maybe some bad
>>>> cables, or a bad power supply who knows.  But with a RAID 5 array that
>>>> already has a bad drive, I am hesitant to start troubleshooting that might
>>>> cause another drive to fail and I lose everything.
>>>> 
>>>> I guess an option would be to build a completely new system using another
>>>> storage architecture, like unRAID, which is what I was planning to do in
>>>> another year.  That's really the only way I can think to get my data to
>>>> safety.  But I don't want to spend that money/time now if I can at all help
>>>> it.
>>>> 
>>>> ---
>>>> Brian
>>>> 
> 
> -- 
> 
> Bryan G. Seitz

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