Help with RAID0/SCSI problem
Hi -- I'm new here and hope someone can offer some advice. I've got a custom rig P4 2.8, SCSI RAID0 array running three Maxtor Atlas IIIs 36GB 10K, a 250GB IDE for data and a swappable bay for several other IDE drives. I just installed the 250GB IDE last month after a failure. Here's my (potential) problem.
I am hearing a surging coming from one of the three Atlas drives. Being a bit paranoid from the recent IDE failure, I am expecting a potential drive problem, but my rig is only two years old and does not run 24/7. It runs less than average, as I travel 50% of each month. Question: if I run Maxtor's diagnostic, how will I know which drive has a potential problem? One boots WinXP and another is a dedicated scratch drive for PhotoShop, the third for the RAID0. I can follow the cable trail to channels one and two of the controller (?), but my knowledge stops there. I cannot physically identify which drive holds the OS, functions as the scratch disk, etc.
If one goes, all three go, correct?
IF I am facing a worst-case drive failure of the OS, how do I go about preparing a new drive, say in this case the one containing the OS, before I can restore my ghosted image to it? Would this be done from a recovery disk? I've replaced many peripherals and standard IDE drives before, but this is my first SCSI RAID system. How can I determine which of the physical drives (1) contains the OS or, (2) acts as the scratch disk? Would it be prudent to have an additional Atlas loaded with my ghosted OS image as a contingency?
I may be a bit premature, but I'd rather be prepared ahead of time.
Thank you,
-Patricia
I am hearing a surging coming from one of the three Atlas drives. Being a bit paranoid from the recent IDE failure, I am expecting a potential drive problem, but my rig is only two years old and does not run 24/7. It runs less than average, as I travel 50% of each month. Question: if I run Maxtor's diagnostic, how will I know which drive has a potential problem? One boots WinXP and another is a dedicated scratch drive for PhotoShop, the third for the RAID0. I can follow the cable trail to channels one and two of the controller (?), but my knowledge stops there. I cannot physically identify which drive holds the OS, functions as the scratch disk, etc.
If one goes, all three go, correct?
IF I am facing a worst-case drive failure of the OS, how do I go about preparing a new drive, say in this case the one containing the OS, before I can restore my ghosted image to it? Would this be done from a recovery disk? I've replaced many peripherals and standard IDE drives before, but this is my first SCSI RAID system. How can I determine which of the physical drives (1) contains the OS or, (2) acts as the scratch disk? Would it be prudent to have an additional Atlas loaded with my ghosted OS image as a contingency?
I may be a bit premature, but I'd rather be prepared ahead of time.
Thank you,
-Patricia
0
Comments
1) What controller? Many true hardware raid controllers mask stuff away from utilities and diagnostic progs and you have to connect them to a regular controller to use them.
2) When you say "surging" can you be more specific? My visual is your hearing it spin faster or slower? Your sure its not a PSU related problem?
hard to help ya troubleshoot which drive is what since you have three drives in your system and list what two do and list the third as raid-0. It takes multiple drives to be raided unless you created a single drive raid-0 arrays in a hardware raid controller and in that case all three are probably seperate raid-0 arrays. Or you made one large raid-0 array and partitioned it into three drives or ?? The possibilities are endless right now.
Help me out with more info on the controller and exact way its configured and I can probably help ya sort this.
Tex
Looking back at my list of items this is what I have:
1) Adaptec dual channel U160 SCSI adapter; Express PCI UL3D 64 BIT 33Mhz LVD (ATTO?)
2) The "surging" is a very audible constant rate. Similar to a prop being out of sync. It has been suggested to thoroughly check my fans first as the culprit. I must admit that the fan for the Gigabyte chipset is *very* close to the three SCSI drives and I probably should start there. The CPU fan seems to be OK.
As mentioned, I was new to RAID0 with this system (still learning). I boot off of drive 2 and I know that one is dedicated as a Photoshop scratch disk. Here is what I have (Disk Management):
Disk 0: DATA (F) 232.88GB (IDE)
SCSI/RAID:
Disk 1: SCRATCH (E) 34.24GB (Page File)
Disk 2: Partion: WINXP (C) 19.18GB (System)
...........Partion: RAW (D) 49.32GB
So, since Disk 1 is dedicated, the other two Atlas 36Gigs have been configured for C: and D: = 72G correct? I want to understand the mechanics on how this is accomplished. How exactly does RAID work based on the configuration above?
I wish I were at the point where I could build my own system, but I'm not there yet. ;-)
Hope this helps...
Thank you,
-Patricia