How to wizz your pants in 1 easy step

[DQ]

So here I was, just a few days ago, adding a new drive to my Plex server for some additional storage.

I add the drive, it was uneventful. Then I boot the system back up and I notice I am showing too many drives. I am like WTF. Then I notice one of the "additional" drives being shown is one from the RAID array!

I was equal parts confused and terrified at the same time (for those not tech inclined a broken RAID array usually means you are restoring everything).

So I reboot into BIOS and find that it wigged out when I put a new drive in and it changed itself out of RAID mode. So I turn it back on and say a small prayer and jump into the RAID BIOS.

There were only 2 options. Create a new array or destroy the old one, either way... I am hosed!

So I destroy the old array, add a new one and add the drives that were originally in the old array.

Data go bye bye.

Long story short, after several hours of nail biting my restore completed and I had everything back. Thank you Acronis.

I might have to go with a NAS in the future with RAID 5 or 6.

 

[DrXenos]

At least you were smart enough to have a backup. I argued until I was blue in the face with people who think RAID doesn't require a backup.

 

[DQ]

At least you were smart enough to have a backup. I argued until I was blue in the face with people who think RAID doesn't require a backup.

Oh yeah. ALWAYS have backups. Preferably in at least 2 places for anything critical.

 

[George++]

How to wizz your pants in 1 easy step

Get old and drink coffee. LOTS and LOTS of coffee.

 

[DQ]

Get old and drink coffee. LOTS and LOTS of coffee.

BWAHAHAHAHAHA !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[ChuckH]

Oh yeah. ALWAYS have backups. Preferably in at least 2 places for anything critical.

Yeah, I just had a new 12TB external drive I bought specifically for my movies die on my after a few months. I had most of them backed up to a smaller drive that was reaching capacity, so I only lost about 25% of my work, but it was enough.

 

[DQ]

Yeah, I just had a new 12TB external drive I bought specifically for my movies die on my after a few months. I had most of them backed up to a smaller drive that was reaching capacity, so I only lost about 25% of my work, but it was enough.

That sucks. Yeah I probably really need to move to a NAS so I can run RAID5/6/10 to get some hardcore redundancy. That plus a backup would make me feel better than what I have now. It's just like anything else, it comes at a cost.

 

[zero269]

Yeah I probably really need to move to a NAS so I can run RAID5/6/10 to get some hardcore redundancy. That plus a backup would make me feel better than what I have now. It's just like anything else, it comes at a cost.

A NAS is the way to go, especially for Media enthusiasts like us. I run an 8-bay QNAP with RAID 5; uses 1 drive for parity, and I’m using 1 bay with a 1TB SSD drive for SSD Caching.
If I go with a rack NAS or extend to 16 drives, then I’ll implement RAID 6 which uses 2 drives for parity.

For anyone with RAID curiosity:
RAID 5 uses 3 drives minimum and 1 drive for parity. This means you can tolerate a failure of 1 drive.
RAID 6 uses 4 drives minimum and 2 drives for parity. This means you can tolerate a failure of 2 drives.
Each one has a max supported as well.

For home use and using fewer than 8 drives, RAID 5 is a good choice.
For those using more than 14 drives may want to consider RAID 6. This is a more expensive option of course, but when you have a lot of drives in your RAID, you have a greater chance of having two drives fail before you have the opportunity to replace and rebuild the array.