THIS ARTICLE ALSO INCLUDES HOW TO CLONE AND RE-SIZE THE DISK PARTITIONS CONTAINING THE OPERATING PARTITION ONTO LARGER CAPACITY DRIVES AND REBUILD THE RAID ARRAY MIRROR.
What to do when a RAID Mirror Array Degrades. When a RAID array (mirror) is not protected by a hot spare and one of the disk drives in that array fails (and you want to keep the same size/capacity Array in place), then remove and replace the failed disk drive with a brand new unused drive of at least the same or larger capacity and feature type as the existing drives (such as the same RPM, same cache size, etc., features).
Some RAID Controllers will automatically begin to rebuild the array when the new disk drive is detected by the controller. If not, then there are other ways to start the rebuild.
Manual Rebuild using the Array Configuration Utility (ACU) BiOS. Replace the failed drive with a new one (of equal or greater capacity). Boot the system, press CTRL + A to access the ACU utility on system boot up. When inside the ACU utility, select ‘Array Configuration Utility’, then press Enter. Select ‘Initialize Drives’ and initialize the new drive that you have added to the system.
Then select ‘Manage Arrays’. Highlight the array that needs to be rebuilt, and select CTRL + S option in order to manage hot spares for the array, add in the new drive as global hot spare for the array and a rebuild will begin on the degraded array automatically. Note: The CTRL + S option is not available on all controllers.
Manual Rebuild using Adaptec Storage Manager
If Adaptec Storage Manager Software is installed on your System, then you should be able to use this procedure as well. Replace the failed drive with a new one (of equal or greater capacity). Boot into the operating system and login to the Adaptec Storage Manager software.
In the Enterprise View click on the controller with the degraded logical device.
Under physical devices view click on the newly added harddrive and select ‘Actions’ and then ‘Create dedicated hot spare for’ then select the logical device which needs to be rebuilt.
A rebuild will then begin automatically on the degraded logical device. For further detailed instructions on how to assign a dedicated hot spare in Storage Manager, please refer to the Adaptec Storage Manager User’s Guide.
REBUILD THE RAID ARRAY MIRROR AND RE-SIZE THE ARRAY AND THE OPERATING PARTITION ONTO LARGER CAPACITY DRIVES.
I plan to use either EASEUS To Do Backup or EASEUS Partition Manager, or Macrium Reflect v5 (Server Edition), to clone and to resize the Raid array onto the larger capacity drives. If you use the search box at the Macrium Reflect website, you can find how to download a 30 day trial version of Macrium. I will need to use the Server edition because I am rebuilding and resizing the Raid Array on the server hosting this blog site!!! If you are reading this article more than a few days from its publication date, then my process must have worked if this website is still up and running.
UPDATE September 6, 2014: When I cloned and re-sized the operating partition from the 500GB Drive Port 0 (degraded mirror) and expanded it onto a brand new 1TB drive on a non-Raid SATA port (using Macrium Reflect), the new 1TB drive NO LONGER contains the original Array information. This means it will be (was) necessary to install the new clone 1TB onto Port 0 of the Raid Controller, and to install the 2nd brand new 1TB drive on Port 1 or Port 2., and then CONFIGURE A NEW RAID-1 ARRAY using the BUILD method. The 1TB drive on Port 0 is the source of the Build, and the 1TB drive on Port 2 is the target of the Build. It took from 11 PM until 7 PM the next day for the Build to complete and report an optimum mirror.
I currently have a RAID Mirror on Adaptec 1430SA RAID Controller using two 500GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 SATA-3 Drives, 32MB cache, Seagate Model SG3500320SA. The drives are connected to Port 0 and Port 2 of the RAID Controller, respectively. My event viewer contained an entry that stated the Adaptec Storage Manager application detected that the RAID Array had degraded. Upon inspection, I found that the Hard Drive on Port 2 was failing. I removed that drive from the Controller.
I plan to upgrade to the RAID Array by installing 2 Seagate 1TB 7200RPM 64MB Cache SATA Drives. I found the drives on special at Tiger Direct for $60 each, plus tax.
I will install a single new 1TB drive on the standard onboard SATA controller on my motherboard (not on the 1430SA RAID controller which is installed in a PCI-e slot). I will boot to the remaining single 500GB System drive on the degraded Array. Then, I will download and install the server version of Macrium Reflect.
Once Macrium is installed, I will start Macrium and clone the 500GB drive while resizing the operating partition onto the new 1TB drive. The Marcrium instructions say to select the 500GB source drive from the degraded Array, and then select the new 1TB target drive. Next, select the source partition and drag and drop it onto the target drive. Use the mouse to grab and drag the target partition to resize it, or merely click the button that says resize the partition to utilized the entire target drive. Hopefully, the Macrium software will handle the resizing of the underlying RAID Array as well.
Then, I will remove the cloned 500GB drive from port 0 of the Raid Controller card and install the rezized 1TB drive on Port 0 and reboot the server to verify that all is working. Checking in the Raid Array Configuration Utility, the new 1TB drive should show up as a degraded drive on the Array, and the second Drive will show as missing (because it has not yet been installed).
UPDATE September 6, 2014: The original degraded Raid Array did not show up in the Raid Array Configuration Utility. Instead, it showed the new 1TB drive configured by default as JBOD. I realized at this point that the Array information is not stored in the controller card. Instead it must be stored on the drives. In which case, when Marcrium Reflex cloned the FAT Dell Utility partition, and copied and resized (expanded) the NTFS operating system partition, it did NOT keep the original Raid Array information. Consequently, I need to configure a new RAID-1 Mirror Array with the two new drives using the “Build” method.
UPDATE September 6, 2014: If you have hardware Raid rather than the Software-type Raid Controller, then it is still possible that the following paragraph of instructions still holds true because the original Raid Array information may still be contained in the Bios of the Raid Controller. I am not sure about this, but if so, then:
Power down and install the second 1TB SATA drive on Port 2 of the Raid Controller Card. Follow the instruction above to rebuild the RAID Array mirror, as if the Drive Partitions were never resized.
UPDATE September 6, 2014: If the original Raid Mirror is not saved when you Clone and Resize / Extend the size of the Operating System Partition, then follow the instructions of Part II of this Article to Rebuild your Raid-1 Array.
See Part II Article at:
Build a Raid-1 Mirror Array on Adaptec 1430SA After an Operating System Is Installed