RAID always breaks up

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crewl Author

Level 1

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RAID always breaks up

We have a Mac Xserve in our company and migrated in January from 10.6 to 10.7

With all the newest updates installed, we tried to build our software RAID with 2 discs via Disk Utility.

The disks are 100% okay and identical manufacturer and size, S.M.A.R.T Status also okay. The building of the RAID

completes properly. But after 1 hour the RAID breaks and again and again. With the disk utility I can rebuild the RAID,

but after rebuilding and one hour later the RAID again is broken ;-(

I attach a screenshot! Anyone out there with the same problem? Any help would be appreciatet.

Thanks

Xserve, Mac OS X (10.7.3)

Posted on Mar 9, 2012 1:51 AM

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Answer 1

Camelot

Level 9

54,333 points

Mar 9, 2012 1:13 PM in response to crewl

The disks are 100% okay

I disagree. Clearly that is not the case.

Is it the same disk that's repeatedly failing? If so, it sounds like that disk really is having problems. SMART can help, but it can't identify all problems. I would look to replace this disk with a new disk. I'd never plan to put a failed disk back into an array - it failed for a reason.

There is a small chance that it isn't the disk, but some other hardware issue. This can be tested by swapping the drive bay the RAID drives are in - if the failure stays with the same disk, then the disk clearly is at fault, but if it stays with the bay there might be some problem with that bay. There's less chance of the bay being the problem, but it might be worth checking anyway.

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Answer 2

crewl Author

Level 1

0 points

Mar 12, 2012 1:36 AM in response to Camelot

Thanks for this good interpetation.

We had this RAID Problem a few months ago (at this time we had the old Server Version 10.5.8)

When the RAID crashed I sent the Hard Drive to Seagate because we still had warranty for the drive.

Seagate sent ma a factory new Hard Drive. Then we updated to Lion Server and the problems mentioned

in my first post occured.

Do you think that maybe the suposed new Hard Drive wasn't new at all?

What would you do in such a case?

Thanks for your good help!

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Answer 3

Camelot

Level 9

54,333 points

Mar 12, 2012 11:51 AM in response to crewl

It's very hard to tell what manufacturers do when you return a defective part.

Many of them won't send brand new replacement parts - replacements are often refurbished parts.

While refurbished shouldn't cause a problem, there has to be a reason why it's refurbished, so I wouldn't trust it for crtical data.

As for what to do... well, try swapping the drive bays and see if the problem follows the bay or follows the disk. If the same disk repeatedly fails, regardless of the drive bay then get a new drive, even if you have to buy it.

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