Repeatedly failing RAID 0 array
I have a RAID 0 array of four SCSI disks on a PCI raid controller card (Perc 320/DC). The array just failed for the second time. The first time was about nine months ago. Both times the symptoms were the same. The PC locks up and then on re-boot, I get a message that the array is missing a required member. I ran the RAID disk utility on all four disks and they check out fine. If I unplug one of the drives, I get the same message but it also indicates which drive is missing. With all four drives connected I get the "drive has missing member" message but no message as to which drive. The last time this happened (about nine months ago), I simply initialized all the disks, built a new array, restored the backup, and it worked fine again until now. Can anyone tell me why this is happening? Why does the RAID controller think one of the members is missing when it can see all the drives?. I hate to just re-create the array and wait for it to happen again, but everything seems to be working fine, except that the old array isn't accessible.
Is it perhaps some sort of file corruption on one of the drives, and, if so, are there any utilities that could fix it without having to go through the re-build, restore back-up process?
Thanks,
Mike
Is it perhaps some sort of file corruption on one of the drives, and, if so, are there any utilities that could fix it without having to go through the re-build, restore back-up process?
Thanks,
Mike
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Any way to reset the controller so that it will recognize the array again?
>Any way to reset the controller so that it will recognize the array again?
No. Once you lose one disc in a RAID 0 set, you lose all your data. RAID 0 is **not** RAID! The 'R' in RAID stands for Redundant, and RAID 0 has no redundancy, therefore a high risk of losing your data - as you've experienced. RAID 0 was promulgated as a standard to be used where either data loss was acceptable or to be used with other RAID levels to provide the needed redundancy - such as RAID 1/0 or RAID 50.
If you want to be able to recover form a disc failure, then configure the array as RAID 5 or RAID 1/0
No. Once you lose one disc in a RAID 0 set, you lose all your data. RAID 0 is **not** RAID! The 'R' in RAID stands for Redundant, and RAID 0 has no redundancy, therefore a high risk of losing your data - as you've experienced. RAID 0 was promulgated as a standard to be used where either data loss was acceptable or to be used with other RAID levels to provide the needed redundancy - such as RAID 1/0 or RAID 50.
If you want to be able to recover form a disc failure, then configure the array as RAID 5 or RAID 1/0
RAID 0 is a bane to computing and should not be used under any circumstances.
You should make sure that you have a full backup of any system using RAID 0, since you will need the backup.
In almost all cases a failure of a RAID 0 results in the unrecoverable loss of all data.
Since this is a multiple failure, you shouldtake this a a lesson and an opportunity to use RAID 5 or at least RAID 1
You should make sure that you have a full backup of any system using RAID 0, since you will need the backup.
In almost all cases a failure of a RAID 0 results in the unrecoverable loss of all data.
Since this is a multiple failure, you shouldtake this a a lesson and an opportunity to use RAID 5 or at least RAID 1
Usually when this kind of thing happens, it means that the array controller itself is the problem. Could be some bad RAM or something on it.