Hi all ~
I'm relatively new to RAID, and I'm hoping to find some advice here
that could pull me out of a sticky spot.
Several months ago, I finally achieved a three-year dream and
completed my RAID server project. I built a 8-drive (500gb each) 3TB
array. It's a RAID5 array on 7 SATA 3.0GB/s HDDs, with a single
designated hot-swap spare. The whole thing is tied together with an
Areca ARC-1220 PCIe controller.
Also, quick note: the OS is not on the array. It is on a separate,
small HDD.
The file server had been working fabulously for several months.
Then two days ago, I had my first hint of trouble: I was getting error
messages when trying to write to a folder that I was pretty sure I had
given myself write access to. Later that day when I decided I would
start to try to troubleshoot the issue, I went to log onto the server
itself and saw the dreaded "delayed write failed" error message
stack. The machine had stopped responding to network commands at this
point, and I could see no way to safely reboot the machine (I didn't
seem to be able to get past the errors to log in locally). So I hard-
rebooted the server.
When it came back up, the controller bios threw up a huge red
warning, telling me that one of my RAID volumes was in a non-normal
state. Went into the BIOS and checked, and it was showing as degraded
in some menus and failed in others (I can post clarifying images later
tonight). Almost all of the menu options throughout the BIOS were non-
functional, re****ting that "(whatever I was trying to do) can only be
performed on an (Array / Volume / RAIDSet) in normal state." This was
true for running consistency checks, expanding the volume, etc.
What I was finally was able to glean from the few working menu
options was that six of my former seven drives were still part of the
RAIDSet / Volume / Array, but that drives 1 and 8 were showing as
simply not. Drive 1 should have been part of the package, but wasn't,
and drive 8 should have been designated as a hot spare and wasn't.
So my question is this: does anybody know how I can rebuild this
array? We're talking a 2/3 full 3TB array full of family treasures -
family photos, home movies, projects, etc etc etc. The entire reason
I built this server was so that I could be sure I would never lose any
of this data - it had all been living on a 1.5TB software RAID up
until christmas. Yet that had worked for years (albeit making me
constantly nervous), and now my supposedly redundant data storage
system has apparently committed suicide.
In any case, here's what I know: I have 6 drives out of 7 still
showing as being within the array. That should mean I have a full
copy of data - although it doesn't appear that a drive has died
(rather, that something occurred internally within the controller that
borked the array, quite probably due to my ignorance during setup), it
seems like it SHOULD be the same as losing a drive. Yet none of the
options within the BIOS are of any use to me - it wants me to get the
array into a normal state before it'll let me add a drive to it, but I
can't because it's a 7-drive array living on 6 drives in a "degraded"
state!
Anyway, I'm lost, and somewhat panicked. Any advice? Thanks
worlds in advance,
- Jesse
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