clkdiv
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RAID-Tools for administration

Hello nice people!

I have a hardware RAID 0+1 made from four disks ob 3TB each.

Now one drive was temporarily disconnected, now online again. In the BIOS the RAID array status is "Rebuild". But this seems to take very long. Is there any software out there to manage RAIDs? I can't find anything at all.

The attached image shows the RAID before one disk was disconnected, now the status is yellow and shows "Rebuild".

Thank you very much!
img_3409

Content-Key: 5753207499

Url: https://administrator.de/contentid/5753207499

Ausgedruckt am: 19.03.2024 um 02:03 Uhr

Mitglied: maretz
Lösung maretz 31.01.2023 um 09:44:44 Uhr
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"very long time" is quite relative. It can mean it take 2 seconds (for a CPU this is a very long time i.e.) - or 200 Years... If you see it from another perspective - 200 Years is also quite short in meaning of the time the universe exist...

But of course it can take several hours or even days until the rebuild of a raid with 6 TB is completed...
Mitglied: NoAiming
NoAiming 31.01.2023 um 13:03:56 Uhr
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Hello clkdiv,

i am not sure if you can manage your RAID-Controller with it, but try out the drivers for "Intel Rapid Storage Technology" - a short google search shows me several screenshots where you can at least view the status while running windows.
And furthermore, yes, your rebuild can take up to several hours or even a day - depending on the performance of your RAID-Controller.
Kind Regards,
Mitglied: clkdiv
clkdiv 31.01.2023 um 20:58:04 Uhr
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Hello and thanks for your answers. I tried with RST, but only was able to see the configuration, not any progress or so.

However, the RAID really turned itself back into "Normal" state, after days working with the computer, all in all I think it took maybe 20 hours to rebuild. I couldn't imagine it is so slow. However it is good to know the system really works.

Now the 4x3 TB disks are quite old, and I am planning to change them to maybe 4 x 8TB, one by one. I assume, that as soon as I change the last disk to 8TB, the raid capacity will change to 15-16 TB, am I right?

Thanks again. Martin
Mitglied: Pjordorf
Pjordorf 31.01.2023 um 22:47:04 Uhr
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Hello,

Quote from @clkdiv:
Now the 4x3 TB disks are quite old, and I am planning to change them to maybe 4 x 8TB, one by one. I assume, that as soon as I change the last disk to 8TB, the raid capacity will change to 15-16 TB, am I right?
No, wrong. The Capacity will stay as it is. You need to Manually adjust the Size. (Data will be lost). Best do a complete Backup, swap all Drives, build new RAID and restore your Data. Not necessary to run 4 Rebuilds.

Gruß,
Peter
Mitglied: NoAiming
NoAiming 01.02.2023 um 08:43:35 Uhr
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Hey clkdiv,

I assume, that as soon as I change the last disk to 8TB, the raid capacity will change to 15-16 TB, am I right?

As Pjordorf suggested, the faster and maybe easier way is a full rebuilt with a backup - if you have a backup target which is big enougth. But I would not necessarily say that your way is not possible. I remember that a former colleque of mine did this procedure with a Synology NAS. All the HDDs in it were 2 TB of size and we changed the HDDs over a few days one by one to bigger ones. The Synology NAS was then able to increase the size of the volume once the last rebuild was done. But we had to do that manually - that is not an automatism.
Maybe, just mabye, your controller is also able to do that.
Kind Regards
Mitglied: maretz
maretz 01.02.2023 um 09:31:58 Uhr
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Quote from @NoAiming:

Hey clkdiv,

I assume, that as soon as I change the last disk to 8TB, the raid capacity will change to 15-16 TB, am I right?

As Pjordorf suggested, the faster and maybe easier way is a full rebuilt with a backup - if you have a backup target which is big enougth. But I would not necessarily say that your way is not possible. I remember that a former colleque of mine did this procedure with a Synology NAS. All the HDDs in it were 2 TB of size and we changed the HDDs over a few days one by one to bigger ones. The Synology NAS was then able to increase the size of the volume once the last rebuild was done. But we had to do that manually - that is not an automatism.
Maybe, just mabye, your controller is also able to do that.
Kind Regards

Even that i would NEVER do without an actual backup - so the backup need to be done anyway. And than i would also go for full re-install. Also have in mind: EVERY change of the disk will cause a full re-build, so quite a lot of waiting time...
Mitglied: clkdiv
clkdiv 01.02.2023 um 09:38:02 Uhr
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Ok, thanks a lot. I have external hard drives for backup, so there was no risk trying to swap the disks one by one. If it fails, I could do it at once.

However thanks you very much for all your help!
Mitglied: Roudn15
Roudn15 02.02.2023 um 13:54:13 Uhr
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Yes, there are software tools available to help manage RAID arrays. Depending on the type of RAID controller you have, you may be able to use the manufacturer's proprietary software to manage the array. If not, then you can use open source tools such as mdadm to manage Linux-based RAID arrays. You can also use software RAID management tools such as MegaRAID Storage Manager, areca CLI, and Adaptec Storage Manager, which are available for various platforms.