topic NAS1200s - RAID disk errors/need to reactivate in Network Attached Storage (NAS) - Enterprise

NAS1200s - RAID disk errors/need to reactivate

IDO_2 — Mon, 08 Nov 2004 06:00:25 GMT

Hello all,

we use a hp nas1200s (windows storage server 2003) with 4 maxtor ide hdd (hotplug), dynamic disks RAID5 for data, and mirroring for system (pre-configured and installed, we changed nothing in partitioning), Gigabit Ethernet connection.
Some of the disks frequently go into error state, a warning sign appears in the logical disk manager, and we have to reactive the failed disks... it works for a while then goes into error state again. Sometimes we have to stop the machine, extract the disks, reinsert them and restart it. Could there be a problem with hot plug/software raid support of Windows server 2003?

What is strange is that it is the second server of this type we have and the same problems occur (we initially purchased a 1000s, hp intervened onsite and replaced the 1000s with a 1200s, we copied our data onto the new server). We first thought it might be a problem due to excessive heat, but we allow more air flow around the server and it does not seem to make a difference (the server is in a wooden case open on the front and the back).

Has anyone encountered this kind of problems with Windows RAID5/mirroring?

Thanks for your help and best regards
IDO

Re: NAS1200s - RAID disk errors/need to reactivate

Greg Carlson — Mon, 08 Nov 2004 12:52:17 GMT

IDO,

What kind of work load is being placed on this NAS? It sounds like you have a failed or failing hdd. Keep in mind these were designed for small business usage with about 8 hours use per day and if they are used more intensively you'll see a higher failure rate of hdds.

Ciao,
Greg

Re: NAS1200s - RAID disk errors/need to reactivate

Clemens Sibon — Tue, 09 Nov 2004 03:43:53 GMT

Hi there,

Last year we have had numerous Maxtor disk failures in other systems and therefore we swapped all the Maxtor disks in our NAS 1200s and changed them for Hitachi I think.

You can do this without interrupting the system . To do this, swap 1 disk, repair the software RAID volumes (the mirrored boot partitions and the RAID 5 partitions) and after that is finished (will take quite a while) you can swap the next and so on.

When the system is under heavy load, we do see mesages in the system log about delaying of non-paging IO requests but hey, it's software RAID so you get what you pay for.