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General discussion

RAID HotSpare Missmatch...help

Aug 16, 2006 2:59PM PDT

Hi All,
i'm running a RAID 1 on 2 160GB SATAII (16mb cache) drives, the 3rd drive i have is also a 160GB SATAII but with only 8mb cache. all western digital.
i want to use the 3rd drive as a HotSpare but it's a slightly different size to the others as it's a different model. this one's 146.4GB, the other two are 154.6MB.

The adaptec Raid controller lets me use the drive as a hotspare, but warns that as it's smalller that the array, some of my data could be at risk.

so... if i partion the Raid 1 array so that it's only using the first 146GB of the drives as logical drives for storage... then does that me all will be ok in the event of one drive failing... as (theoretically) there wont be any data on the remaining area of the array that's larger than the hot spare???

(also.... should i have the write cache enabled on the array or not??)

thanks in advance...

Michael.

Discussion is locked

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Should not be a problem. Here's why.
Aug 16, 2006 10:42PM PDT

Anyone that uses PCs or more specifically hard disks has a backup and a disaster recovery plan. So no file is ever lost.

Bob

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what a dumb response
Aug 17, 2006 1:00PM PDT

um..
that doesnt in any way answer my question regarding the RAID hotspare.
i dont know why you even bothered to respond.

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Is backup dumb?
Aug 17, 2006 10:00PM PDT

You have the warning message which is quite clear that you have the wrong drive so what's the real question. I see it as....

Will I lose files?

My answer is about this.

Still dumb? Only if the owner/operator runs without a backup.

Bob

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Yes; it'll work.
Aug 17, 2006 8:35PM PDT

What will happen when you format the drives as 146GB is that you will have your extra 8GB on the side. I believe that if you wanted you could actually use that extra 8GB as storage; but that is dependent on the controller and I dont know which adaptec you're using.

Once again; yes, if you repartition your 154GB array to 146GB and use your 3rd HDD as a hotspare; it will work!

Write-Cache is a feature that will enable you to get better performance from your drives; once again, how this works is dependent on your controller, but for the most part it is based in the controllers RAM. What it does is it stores the read write operations for the disks in the RAM until it can more effeciently do that operation. Hence; if you want better performance off your RAID; I assume you do, then go ahead and enable it.

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Thanks
Aug 19, 2006 4:11PM PDT

Great.... thanks for your answer... you confirmed what i was thinking.

Cheers.