NVIDIA raid5 problem

[Migelo]

Hello everyone!

In my server I have M68M-S2P mobo with nforce 630a chipset. I have configured 3x2TB HDDs into RAID5 with MediaShield configurator that you can access just after BIOS by pressing F10 - as seen in the picture below

So after it was configured I installed windows on a separate drive and the HTPC/file server was ready to go!

Now, after a couple of moths I opened Nvidia control panel and found something strange.

Notice the TWO raid arrays. I have all 3 disks in ONE array, as seen from the picture. (the 500GB is a separate disk just for OS and programs)

Any idea what is happening?

Regards, Migelo

 

[postmortemIA]

perhaps degraded means RAID5 feature where 1 out of 3 drives can have problem and you don't loose your array?

 

[Migelo]

Actually, I did some more digging and found out that I'm not alone in this.

http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=11732
http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=50322

google search

As I understand, I should just delete one drive from the array, add it back and rebuild?

 

[sub.mesa]

You probably had a bad sector on the failed drive. It has been detached from your primary array. You can zero-write the failed disk and then re-attach it to your array, starting a rebuild.

Please note that this kind of RAID layer (RAID5 on Windows) is very unreliable; I suggest you avoid it and use real backups instead of trusting your data to such unsafe driverRAID.

 

[MobiusPizza]

You probably had a bad sector on the failed drive. It has been detached from your primary array. You can zero-write the failed disk and then re-attach it to your array, starting a rebuild.

Please note that this kind of RAID layer (RAID5 on Windows) is very unreliable; I suggest you avoid it and use real backups instead of trusting your data to such unsafe driverRAID.

+1
I wanted to do RAID 5 and I realise that to do RAID 5 properly one needs a proper hardware controller card and it's just not worth the effort. In terms of data security RAID 10 > Raid 1>= Raid 6 > Raid 5. I went to do RAID 1 instead.

 

[Migelo]

Raid5 is the only way I can go. With raid1 you are limited the the size of one disk (currently 3 TB, I need more than that)

I'll backup all my data somewhere and try to rebuild the array, after scanning the disks for bad sectors.

Which hardware raid controller do you suggest?

 

[MobiusPizza]

RAID 5 was invented in a era when HDD are so much more expensive, with so low HDD prices (before the flood) it is hard to justify.

When I considered RAID 5 myself I worked it out it's almost just as economical to get 4 HDDs RAID 1+0 (software raid) instead of 3 HDDs plus a controller, which gives the same amount of space. However currently as we speak harddisk drive price is rising that may change the picture a bit but not much.

Good decent RAID controllers (LSI, adaptec), even entry level runs well into $400, the only 'cheap' option is High Point ones, especially older gen like RocketRaid 2640.
If you insist on RAID 5 any controller is better than software RAID 5 as performance and reliability is just horrible on software RAID 5

Raid5 is the only way I can go. With raid1 you are limited the the size of one disk (currently 3 TB, I need more than that)

In your case I'd personally get an extra HDD and run RAID 10 (Raid 1+0, not Raid 0+1)
It'd give you the same amount of space (as 3 disk RAID 5) and costs you about the same versus otherwise if you get a new controller for RAID 5. Not only that, you get much better reliability, performance

 

[sub.mesa]

I'll backup all my data somewhere and try to rebuild the array, after scanning the disks for bad sectors.

Which hardware raid controller do you suggest?

Actually, If you insist on not using backups and using RAID5-like techniques to store your data, I highly recommend you to look at ZFS.

ZFS has RAID-Z, which is much more reliable than traditional RAID5 while offering basically the same features (1 drive parity; 1 drive can fail without complete dataloss).

ZFS is only available on some operating systems, such as Nexenta, FreeNAS and ZFSguru. In most cases, using ZFS means you build a computer dedicated to storing files and not used for anything else. This is called a 'NAS' and if you want to go that route I can advise you further.

The main benefit of ZFS would be that you have a much more reliable RAID5 implementation, that you have formidable protection against bad sectors which in all likelyhood caused your current problem, and least but not least: allows snapshots to protect against virusses, accidental deletion and other undesired changes to existing data.

Hardware RAID is better than what you currently have, but not that much better. Most Hardware RAID is also quite vulnerable to bad sectors resulting in error recovery on casual consumer-grade harddrives. A proper setup would involve a battery-backupped write-cache controller (BBWC) combined with enterprise harddrives featuring TLER (Time-Limited Error Recovery) functionality. This is a quite expensive route and basically, ZFS offers an even more reliable and much less expensive way to storing your files.

Aside from both options mentioned above, having a backup in addition to filesystem and RAID protection is highly recommended, especially for data you cannot afford to lose.

 

[Migelo]

@MobiusPizza: Even if I go RAID10, I'm still on software RAID which, as you said it unreliable.

@sub.mesa: I've already tried FlexRAID (very similar to ZFS, but works on both linux and windows-which I have), but found it's snapshot function useless for me. It's live-RAID is now out of beta version so I might give that a try, since it's very flexible - you can easily expand the array, as opposed to normal RAID) All important data (family pictures, etc. are also stored on 2 different locations)

So I wouldn't really get a lot of benefits if I bought a hardware controller?

I've already configured the server to my liking and I'm not going to change the OS, I'm just worried that FlexRAID will give me problems.

Does anyone have any experience with it? Do you have any other alternatives for Windows? (sorry for the probably strangely formulated response. As soon as I wrote something about FlexRAID I spent the next hour researching that, then I turned to hardware controllers, so when I got back to this answer I had +30 tabs opened and had to organise my thoughts)

 

[Migelo]

So I've scanned all 3 disks with HDD Regenerator and there were no bad sectors. I guess it's the integrated controller's fault, can't think of anything else.

Pls help.

 

[Emulex]

i have had zero problems with raid-10 with RE4's. part of my D2D2D system - plus veeam replication - a $50 controller (Br10i) and RE4's = no problemo in server heavy duty operation. if you can't afford that - perhaps you should just rock jbod. there are good causes for both.

 

[Migelo]

I'm more and more turning to software solutions like flexRAID and ZFS.

I just hate the fact how HW raid is stiff.

So I'm the only one with this nvidia raid problem?

 

[Emulex]

hardware raid is solid man. i've had systems running 24x7x365 for 10 years on good ole hardware raid - software raid has always let me down sadly. And ZFS? if you aren't doing DAS it's probably balls slow. iscsi sucks and so does samba/nfs on a massive scale unless you can afford a pair of 10gbe interfaces.

 

[theevilsharpie]

So I'm the only one with this nvidia raid problem?

No. NVIDIA's fakeraid controller are buggy pieces of crap.

If a hardware RAID controller is out of the question, you would be better off using Windows' software RAID configured in a JBOD array. JBOD is solid as long as the hardware is functioning, and you wouldn't be under the illusion that you have any kind of fault tolerance.

 

[Migelo]

I would go with HW raid but it lacks the expandability and flexibility I need. (so I can buy an extra drive when I run out of storage, or am I asking too much???)

Yes, I've done some more internet digging and found out that nvidia raid is really crap.

So as I've said in the first par of my post, is there a reliable, redundand and not dead slow storage solution?

 

[Migelo]

Bump.