RAID Controller Failure

[wcgrnway]

I recently had a drive in 2 drive RAID 0 die and take all 700 GB of data with it. I am considering rebuilding my machine and adding 1 or 2 drives to do either RAID 5 or RAID 0+1, or possibly just mirror the volumes independently.

I have a BFG 680i motherboard that uses the Mediashield software. I am reading in some places that if the RAID controller (in this case the mother board) dies, the data is lost even if the stripe data isn't damaged.

I'm trying to discover the veracity of this before I rebuild my machine. I'd rather not have two mirrored volumes as that will be an irritation, but I don't want to go through the hassle of totally reconstructing my data again. The security of RAID 5 or RAID 0+1 would be enough if I knew I wouldn't be hosed if the motherboard croked. ((Yes, I know RAID != backup)) but backing up 700 Gigs ain't cheap.

Anyone know for sure or have experienced this scenario?

 

[Peter]

Technically, the data will still be there if the mainboard dies - but you'll find that someone else's RAID controller will not necessarily identify and run the RAID set as it is, so you'll have a hard time /getting/ to the data again. In that situation, you're best advised to use a very similar, if not identical, RAID controller.

The one thing to remember is: RAID5 improves system uptime, not data safety. If you consider your data important, back them up. Large amounts of data are still best backed up on tape. Yes this is initially expensive. How much are your data worth?

 

[wcgrnway]

Thanks, I have this same question submitted to nVidia... they immediately referred the answer to a level 2 tech... so I guess even the newbie techs don't know. I have yet to hear from level 2 what the scoop is and how difficult it is to recover in the case of a mainboard failure.

 

[Modelworks]

I don't see a problem with moving raid array from one motherboard to another, provided all the settings are the same and the bios/motherboard are 100% identical.

If its important enough you might want to go ahead and buy two of the motherboard so that if something does happen to the one your using you will not have problems finding that exact bios/model.

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

Honestly, I don't know about motherboard RAID controllers, as I don't use them, but I have done this several times using PCI-X and PCIe RAID controllers. The RAID config data is stored on the hard drives themselves, so you can swap ports & machines as long as you use that same controller.

 

[wcgrnway]

What I find annoying is the vendors who build the product don't know the answer. Both BFG who make the motherboard and nVidia who make the chipset can't (or haven't to this point) given me an answer. It boggles my mind... there's no way that someone hasn't had a board go down with a RAID array installed.

 

[wcgrnway]

FC are those SCSI raid or SATA raid controllers?

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

Originally posted by: wcgrnway
FC are those SCSI raid or SATA raid controllers?

SATA RAID controllers. The one I have now is a Areca ARC-1220 8-port SATA. Prior to this one was a RAIDCore BC4852 8-port SATA, and before that was a HighPoint RocketRAID 8-port IDE.

 

[wcgrnway]

Thanks FC. I just read a review featuring that Areca, that seems like a pretty powerful piece of hardware-- but dang... $529??? Eeek!

I found the whole thing with the RAID scaling to be interesting.

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

In the realm of RAID controllers, you get what you pay for. And I haven't regretted getting it for a second. The interface threw me off for a bit, as it looked rather cheap (the ROMs interface), but the options of the software is great. The next controller I'm getting is the Areca ARC-1220 for my file server, coming up in a few months.