Raid 5 Help Please...

jojosnightjojosnight
edited October 2009 in Hardware
I hope someone can help me, thank you in advance for all your comments. I currently have a 4TB Raid 5 box, that I use for file storage for my home. I am using a 3Ware 9550-SXU 4LP raid card and currently have 4- 1TB Seagate Barracuda 7200rmp (st31000340as) drives in a Raid 5 array. I use the 3dm2 software to monitor my array through my windows xp box, the raid box runs Freenas 0.69b2 (revision 3631) / FreeBSD 6.3-STABLE (revision 199506), the server has been running since about August of 2008 with no problems until now... I was just transferring a file from my server to my desktop when I received an email from 3dm2 stating there had been an ECC error on a drive located at subunit 1 port 2, I logged into 3dm2 to see if there was any further information. When I looked at the array i notice 2 of the 4 drives has a status of OK, the drive on port 2 did in fact have a warning and a status of ECC error, and in addition I noticed that the drive on subunit 3 port 0 had a status of Degraded and that the array was currently rebuilding with about 25% completion. I checked the alarms tab and this is what’s listed, (disregard the times and date as they are not set correctly)
<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p> </o:p>
Oct 20, 2009 12:25.58AM (0x04:0x003B): Rebuild paused: unit=0
Oct 20, 2009 12:25.58AM (0x04:0x0004): Rebuild failed: unit=0
Oct 20, 2009 12:25.58AM (0x04:0x002D): Source drive error occurred: port=2, unit=0
Oct 20, 2009 12:25.58AM (0x04:0x0026): Drive ECC error reported: port=2, unit=0
Oct 20, 2009 12:17.16AM (0x04:0x0202): Drive ECC error: port=2
Oct 20, 2009 12:17.04AM (0x04:0x0202): Drive ECC error: port=2
Oct 20, 2009 12:16.51AM (0x04:0x0202): Drive ECC error: port=2
Oct 20, 2009 12:16.38AM (0x04:0x0202): Drive ECC error: port=2
Oct 20, 2009 12:16.25AM (0x04:0x0202): Drive ECC error: port=2
Oct 20, 2009 12:16.12AM (0x04:0x0202): Drive ECC error: port=2
Oct 20, 2009 12:15.59AM (0x04:0x0202): Drive ECC error: port=2
Oct 20, 2009 12:15.47AM (0x04:0x0202): Drive ECC error: port=2
Oct 20, 2009 12:01.21AM (0x04:0x000B): Rebuild started: unit=0
<o:p> </o:p>
I currently still have access to all of the files stored on the server and have all of the important files backed up to an offsite location but i still have a lot of files that are not backed up and would prefer not to lose. My question is what should I do next. I have a backup 1TB drive ready to insert into the array but which drive do i swap out, the degraded drive or the drive with the ECC error, or neither, i am currently transferring the files that are not backed up to another box but i would like to save this array due to the sheer size of it and the time it is going to take to transfer all the files from scratch. Any help would be greatly appreciated, and if any more information is needed do not hesitate to ask. Thanks for your time and help...

Comments

  • ardichokeardichoke Icrontian
    edited October 2009
    It sounds to me like the drive on port 2 is having problems. That is causing the array to show as degraded and try to rebuild. I'd suggest swapping the backup drive in on port 2 and rebuilding the array. Then check if the errors go away. Once you verify that the array is up and running again, wipe the old drive and run some disk utils on it to see if it's still valid or if it is in fact hosed.
  • jojosnightjojosnight
    edited October 2009
    thank you for your reply but i do have a question, the drive on port 2 shows the ecc error and the drive on port 0 shows degraded the actual drive shows degraded not the array, if i pull the drive with the errors and replace it that leaves me with 2 drives that are ok 1 drive that is degraded and 1 drive that is completely new and blank am i gonna lose files, i guess my question is what exactly does a degraded drive mean?
  • ardichokeardichoke Icrontian
    edited October 2009
    I've honestly never seen any RAID card refer to an individual drive as degraded. Degraded is a state that refers to the array as a whole not an individual drive in all cases I've seen. If it turns out that the other drive is the problem, you should be able to swap the old drive back into it's original position (provided you haven't wiped it yet) and the array should pick it back up.
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