Failed HDD on RAID1 array - replacing the failed HDD with a SSD?

[james73]

Hello all.

I have a RAID1 array on my ASUS Z97-A motherboard, built around late 2014/early 2015. The 2 x HDDs were WD 2Tb drives.

I've just had one of the WD HDDs fail. So I've just ordered 2 x Crucial 2Tb SSDs.


My question is: if I put one of the Crucial SSDs in as replacement for the failed WD will the array rebuild ok initially? Obviously I'm hoping it does, because I can then put the 2nd SSD in the array in place of the working HDD once it rebuilds the array the first time.

Anyone done this sort of thing before?

(ps - my boot drive(s) are on a separate SSD drive - the RAID array is for data storage)


Thanks in advance.

 

[kindai]

In theory yes, as long as your raid controller is happy with it.

 

[james73]

Thanks. For what it's worth, here's the RAID controller interface:

 

[Quartz]

I would not do it that way. As it's RAID 1 you should be able to break the RAID and see the good drive on its own if necessary (check your manual). Thus I would create a new RAID 1 set of the two SSDs and copy everything from the old good drive over.

 

[james73]

....

 

[EsaT]

For functionality toward outside world SATA SSD behaves entirely identically to SATA HDD.

Only thing I'm not sure about is if TRIM commands will get passed on.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trim_(computing)

Intel's tech support might be able to tell if that's supported for RAID array.
Two years ago it wasn't supported.
https://superuser.com/questions/1019069/ssd-trim-support-on-raid-1-array-through-intel-rst
Also this mentions support only for striped arrays:
https://www.intel.com/content/www/u...6462/memory-and-storage/data-center-ssds.html

 

[Wing-Man]

It’s always best to use matching drives, if you want to replace both with ssd’s fix the broken raid first with a matching drive then set up a second raid1 with ssd’s and clone it over.

it’s best to not upset the raid unless you have a dedicated card, if it the motherboards ondoard controller it’s will be basic and take nothing to kill the other drive to

 

[james73]

Just to update this.

The two SSD drives didn't arrive until tuesday. On the monday, I started up the PC and it did not report a fault on the WD HDD that it previously did. Once in Windows, the software (Intel® Rapid Storage Technology) successfully rebuilt the array. No further problems appeared.

Once the SSDs arrived I replaced the WD HDD that had reported the fault with one of the SSDs and the array rebuilt ok in Windows. Then, I replaced the other WD HDD with the 2nd SSD and, again, it rebuilt the array ok. That was Thursday and everything seems fine.


I've kept the 2 WD HDDs - the one that didn't report a fault is still in the PC case on a different sata port and I will use this to clone the array periodically. I've got Macrium Reflect to do the cloning in Windows - anyone use this before? (I've only ever used CloneZilla before).

The WD HDD that reported the fault - I've got an old external enclosure that I'll put this in (it currently has a dead 1Tb drive in it) and I'll see how much longer it lives.

Cheers everyone.

 

[Wing-Man]

It’s much safer to set up a new raid and copy the info over and probably a hell of a lot faster. A basic raid controller will take a long time to rebuild ssd or not.

If you have programs installed you can clone the drive so they still function

 

[james73]

It’s much safer to set up a new raid and copy the info over and probably a hell of a lot faster. A basic raid controller will take a long time to rebuild ssd or not.

If you have programs installed you can clone the drive so they still function

I suspect you're right, but at least now I have a complete copy of all data from the array (I didn't this time last week) so any further issues I can just dump this array and build a new one.