<div>
The drives are 10 years old. &nbsp;A rebuild is profoundly stressful, and I absolutely guarantee that the rebuild will touch sectors that haven't seen any I/O since the last rebuild, which could very well be 10 years ago.<br />
<br />
In THIS situation, the only practical and safe thing to to is a full recovery backup first. &nbsp; Back it all up, &nbsp;clear the config, put in the new disks, configure RAID, then restore.<br />
<br />
The one-at-a-time thing won't work. &nbsp;The replacement drives will have the same usable capacity as the ones you replaced, and you will again put extreme stress on the system.
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<div>
Besides that, the server model would be important to know, what RAID controller it uses, as often a server model can come with different controllers. Once you know the controller's model you'll also know whether they are SCSI (which is likely with a server of that age). Also, Maxtor disks will probably no longer be available, except maybe 2nd hand, Maxtor was bought up by another disk manufacturer (Seagate I think) a long time ago.<br />
<br />
Also, if the array was setup using the RAID controller, you wouldn't see the individual disks using Windows Disk-Management, but rather via the RAID controller's utility which should be installed and accessible via your OS. If it isn't you can still install it, or while booting the server use the short cut keys to get into the firmware RAID utility.
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<div>
&quot;a full recovery backup first&quot; <br />
<br />
I do have Ghost 2003 on there; I will try to clone to an Iomega network drive.<br />
<br />
&quot;The replacement drives will have the same usable capacity as the ones you replaced, and you will again put extreme stress on the system&quot;<br />
<br />
Do you mean that the swapping of drives, itself, is stressful, or do you mean that replacement drives of the same size are stressful? The drives are not very full, and the server does not do very much work, mostly just a sequel server.<br />
<br />
&quot;if the array was setup using the RAID controller, you wouldn't see the individual disks using Windows Disk-Management&quot;<br />
<br />
Hmm... well I do see the Disk 0 and Disk 1 in disk-management.<br />
<br />
&quot;via the RAID controller's utility which should be installed and accessible via your OS.&quot;<br />
<br />
Have not seen it here, but not sure where to look. Where would it be?
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<div>
The rebuild of the array is stressful. The amount of data involved doesn't really matter.<br />
<br />
If you see two disks in disk management either there have been 2 arrays setup, the 2nd disk is another disk connected somehow that has nothing to do with RAID, or you aren't using the controller's RAID function.<br />
<br />
You'd have to look in your OS for a utility that was installed. Sometimes they are also a utility accessible via the web-browser. It is best to check your server's manual or RAID controller's manual, or look on their download sites for tools and manuals for the controller.
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<div>
Ok in Device Manager I found:<br />
<br />
Silicon Image Sii 0680 Ultra 133 Medley ATA Raid Controller<br />
<br />
Have not yet found a utility.
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<div>
That is just an IDE controller, I've never heard of any Dell Poweredge Servers that ran on IDE disks, so this probably is something someone added later. Besides, IDE controllers only were fake-RAID controllers, and those should never be used for RAID, also as IDE disks should never be used in servers, and particularly not in RAID arrays.<br />
<br />
Servers of that vintage usually used SCSI RAID controllers and SCSI disks, or sometimes maybe already SATA or SAS disks and controllers.<br />
<br />
I'd forget about that &quot;RAID&quot; setup, and rather check what the original controller is (some PERC or CERC controller). Check the server's ID Tag and go to the Dell website, from where you can download drivers and utilities, and where you should also be able to see what the original configuration of the server was. Then get disks to that controller directly from Dell, create your RAID arrays on those disks, and restore your system from your backups to the new arrays.
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<div>
Sounds beyond my time constraints right now (just a few minutes a day to handle this).<br />
<br />
While still reading Rindi's post, is there another option to just keep the sql server going?
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<div>
P.S. My RAID controller used in the Dell that had enterprise IDE drives was a megaraid family controller, and it was factory configured and installed. &nbsp;<br />
<br />
Call Dell and see what HDDs they have in stock that are compatible with your system. &nbsp;They have an obligation to spare up on replacement parts to support their government customers. &nbsp;It might cost an arm and a leg for a 5 year old disk drive, but they'll come with a warranty. &nbsp; <br />
<br />
Buy three. You will want to replace all of them and have a hot spare as well. &nbsp; You might want to also consider going with an EXTERNAL RAID controller that attaches via a SCSI controller and get it used off eBAY. &nbsp;It will not only cost you less money (you'll need an Adaptec SCSI controller as well, but drivers are going to be native in Windows 2K so no issues with them.<br />
<br />
&nbsp;The external SCSI RAID controllers will be small enclosure with processor and single SCSI interface cable. the RAID is all done in the enclosure. You can use SCSI disks (which aren't being manufactured any more either , but there are plenty of enterprise class drives out there that are only a few years old).
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<div>
How about just moving to a new (used) machine that is raid?
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<div>
<div class="content wysiwyg-content">
After determining that one of the drives in the raid is going out, I need to find the best procedure to replace the drives and keep the server operating as it was before. They are about 10 years old.<br />
<br />
The Dell Poweredge is from about 2001, and was upgraded by a tech guy to a raid setup in 2006: Two Maxtor 6L300R0 drives, 128 gig each, in separate internal slots in the server. W2000 Server computer management currently says:<br />
<br />
Disk 0: <br />
32mb_up FAT<br />
c: NTFS<br />
d: NTFS<br />
<br />
Disk 1:<br />
e: &nbsp;no info<br />
<br />
f: cdrom<br />
<br />
Sometimes the computer management says the above, and sometimes Disk 1 is grayed out, and sometimes the Disk Management folder is &quot;locked and cannot be accessed&quot;. &nbsp;The goal is to keep it operating, while replacing the drives, so:<br />
<br />
1. A local tech guy said to go ahead and get 2 replacement Maxtor drives, and then we can replace one at a time, but he needs to know if they are scsi or other. How to determine?<br />
<br />
2. Should I try to format Disk 1, or do a surface scan with a dos bootup?<br />
<br />
Thanks
</div>
</div>


After determining that one of the drives in the raid is going out, I need to find the best procedure to replace the drives and keep the server operating as it was before. They are about 10 years old.

The Dell Poweredge is from about 2001, and was upgraded by a tech guy to a raid setup in 2006: Two Maxtor 6L300R0 drives, 128 gig each, in separate internal slots in the server. W2000 Server computer management currently says:

Disk 0: 
32mb_up FAT
c: NTFS
d: NTFS

Disk 1:
e:  no info

f: cdrom

Sometimes the computer management says the above, and sometimes Disk 1 is grayed out, and sometimes the Disk Management folder is "locked and cannot be accessed".  The goal is to keep it operating, while replacing the drives, so:

1. A local tech guy said to go ahead and get 2 replacement Maxtor drives, and then we can replace one at a time, but he needs to know if they are scsi or other. How to determine?

2. Should I try to format Disk 1, or do a surface scan with a dos bootup?

Thanks

Dell PowerEdge raid drive replacement

Servers are computing devices that are similar to desktop computers in that they have the same basic components, but are significantly different in size, configuration and purpose. Servers are usually accessed over a network, and many run unattended, without a computer monitor, input device, audio hardware or USB interfaces. Many servers do not have a graphical user interface (GUI), and are configured and managed remotely. Servers typically include hardware redundancy such as dual power supplies, RAID disk systems, and ECC memory, along with extensive pre-boot memory testing and verification. Critical components might be hot swappable, and to guard against overheating, servers might have more powerful fans or use water cooling.

Server Hardware

Windows 2000 is an operating system for use on both client and server computers. It is the successor to Windows NT 4.0, and is the last version of Microsoft Windows to display the "Windows NT" designation. Four editions of Windows 2000 were released (Professional, Server, Advanced Server, and Datacenter Server) that shared a core set of features, including many system utilities such as the Microsoft Management Console. All versions of the operating system support NTFS 3.0, Encrypting File System, as well as basic and dynamic disk storage. The Windows 2000 Server family includes support for Active Directory services, Distributed File System and fault-redundant storage volumes.

Windows 2000

Storage devices include any device used for storing and retrieving digital information. Hard disk drives (HDDs) use one or more rigid ("hard") rapidly rotating disks (platters) coated with magnetic material. Data is accessed in a random-access manner, meaning that individual blocks of data can be stored or retrieved in any order and not only sequentially. The primary competing technology for secondary storage is flash memory in the form of solid-state drives (SSDs), but HDDs remain the dominant medium for secondary storage due to advantages in price per bit and per-device recording capacity. CD-RW (Compact Disc-ReWritable) is a digital optical disc storage format that allows information to be stored outside the mechanical HDD.

Storage Hardware

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Dell is in Enterprise, Home Office and Consumer sectors of the market, supplying a broad range of customizable desktops, laptops, notebooks, servers, storage, and network devices.

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RAID stands for Redundant Array of Independent Disks.

RAID is data storage technology that allows multiple drives to be used together as a single virtual drive for reasons such as fault tolerance, reliability and performance. 

There are several different levels of RAID that determine how the data is stored and the level of redundancy achieved across the drives.