[SOLVED] How to replace disk in Intel Rapid Storage Raid 10 setup?

[mailalan]

I have 4 drives in a Raid 10 configuration using Intel Rapid Storage version 11. They are set up as a data drive, my operating system is not on these disks. The drives are about 8 years old. I have 4 new identical drives that I would like to replace the old drives with before they fail. I've googled and cant find any info on simply replacing good, functioning drives in an IRST Raid 10 setup. Is it just a matter of physically replacing 1 drive at a time, booting up and going into the IRST software and somehow telling it to rebuild the array as each drive is replaced? Does anybody have experience doing something like this with Intel Rapid Storage Technology? Thank you.

 

[popatim]

The fastest way is to install the new set, copy the files over, and the remove the old set.
Next up is to backup the data, remove the old drives, install the new drives, and then install the files from the backup.
Another way is to replace 1 disk at a time, rebuild the array, repeat for each disk, & lastly expand the array to the full drive capacity.

 

[USAFRet]

In theory, replacing 1 drive at a time should work.

But, I would never do this without a known full backup of all the data.
Each new drive swapped in will trigger a full rebuild of the array. So, multiple rounds of 100% hammering on the old drives.

Any of the old drives could die in this process.

Or any number of other ways for it to fail.

What size are these drives, and how much space is consumed in the whole array?

 

[mailalan]

In theory, replacing 1 drive at a time should work.

But, I would never do this without a known full backup of all the data.
Each new drive swapped in will trigger a full rebuild of the array. So, multiple rounds of 100% hammering on the old drives.

Any of the old drives could die in this process.

Or any number of other ways for it to fail.

What size are these drives, and how much space is consumed in the whole array?

Each drive is 2 TB for a total array size of 4 TB. I currently have about 300 gigs free.

I know that replacing 1 drive at a time should work in theory. My question was how is this accomplished using Intel Rapid Storage. Has anyone done this? Do I need to do anything in IRS before I physically replace the drive or do I just turn off the computer, physically replace the drive and then boot up again? How do I tell IRS to rebuild the array? Do I let Windows boot up and then do it in the IRS software or do I do it before Windows loads? You mentioned that replacing the drive will trigger a full rebuild of the array. Does that happen automatically without me having to do anything? Thanks for any advice.

 

[mailalan]

For anyone who finds this thread in the future looking for the same answer I was, here is what I did.

I made a complete backup of the data drive. (Actually I made 2 complete backups in case one of them failed.)

I then turned off the computer and physically removed 1 of the old drives. I replaced it with 1 of the new bare, unformatted drives. The new drive was identical to the old one. You do not need to format it.

I booted up the computer. The BIOS screen showed the array as "degraded". Once Windows came up, I opened Intel Rapid Storage. On the IRS screen there was a link that said "Rebuild to a new drive". I clicked that link and a new screen popped up saying to select the new drive to rebuild to. It showed the new drive I had just installed with a radio button next to it. I selected the radio button and then clicked a button at the bottom of the screen that said "Rebuild".

IRS then proceeded to rebuild they array. It showed the percentage of completion of the rebuild as it worked. My particular array consisted of four 2TB drives and was about 97% full. It took about 5 hours and 15 minutes to rebuild the array for one drive. While it was rebuilding, the screen showed a graphic that listed the 4 good drives and the 1 drive that was "missing" which was the old one I took out. Once the rebuild status reached 100% it then changed the array status to "Normal" and the missing old drive was removed from the graphic.

I then turned off the computer and repeated the process again with the next drive. I removed and rebuilt each drive one at a time until all 4 had been replaced. After performing this process 4 times I now have 4 brand new zero hour drives in a rebuilt array without losing any data. The total rebuild time was about 21 hours which is faster than I had guessed.

Hopefully this will help someone facing the same need to replace a failed drive or all their drives in an Intel Rapid Storage Raid 10 array.