OT:Need help with old Raid array

[Boaz Bezborodko]

They're Seagate Cheetahs and I think they are pushing 5 years.  I do
have daily backups that are verified immediately after being done.  But
the Raid 5 should be able to handle drive failures which leads me to
think that this isn't the problem.

I was thinking of upgrading the array and server hardware anyway, but I
want to avoid hassles with hardware incompatible with my Netware5, and
I'm not yet ready to upgrade to Win 2003.

Boaz

Jay R. Ashworth wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 07, 2006 at 02:02:18PM -0500, Boaz Bezborodko wrote:
>   
>> I came in this morning to find that the Netware server detected a
>> corruption in the data volume and deactivated it.  It took two rebuilds
>> to get the data back and only some inconsequential files were lost.  It
>> seems that there was an I/O error last night that caused the problem.
>>
>> My questions is whether this is a problem I have to worry about (i.e.
>> imminent hardware failure) or just a glitch.
>>
>> The hardware is a Compaq Storage Array connected via a Compaq Smart
>> Array 3200.  The array is set up as a RAID 5.  I have had no problem
>> until now.  But during the rebuild there were times when the drives on
>> the array would stop and gave me the feeling of a failing drive trying
>> to get data off a bad sector.  None of the drives failed and it seems to
>> be working OK, right now. 
>>
>> Any suggestions?
>>     
>
> How old are the drives, and what make and model?
>
> If they're anything other than Seagates, and they're older than 3 years
> -- 5 years for the Seagates -- you might want to be thinking about
> replacing them, if they're 24hr duty cycle drives. 
>
> Make sure your tape backups are clean, and restorable -- if you have a
> spare machine, do a restore and make sure it's good.
>
> You know: all that recoverability stuff you should be doing anyway.  :-)
>
> Cheers,
> -- jra`
>   
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