How to tell if a drive in my RAID1 has failed.

[danraies]

My complete system is given at the bottom of this post, but the parts related to my question are a Crucial M4 SSD, two 2TB Seagate HDD's, and an ASUS P8Z68-V Pro. I have the SSD as the boot drive and the two 2TB drives in RAID1 through the motherboard. (This system has been up and running great for several months.)

Recently I was working inside my case and while trying to install some fans I completed a circuit though the metal on one of the HDD's and there was a short. I was sure I'd fried the drive, but when I turned it on everything booted as it always has and from what I can tell no damage has been done.

I guess my question is if one of the drives in my RAID1 fails, how am I going to know?

Complete system:
*i5-2500K
*Xigmatek Loki
*ASUS P8Z68-V Deluxe
*MSI Twin Frozr II HD 6950
*G.Skill Ripjaw 16GB
*Crucial M4 128GB
*2x2TB Seagate RAID1
*Corsair HX650
*Hauppage HVR-1250
*Rosewill wireless card
*Zalman Z9 Mid-Tower

 

[GhislainG]

Intel RST will indicate a failed drive as will the BIOS when you boot.

 

[SPRINKSTER]

get an electric static wrist band it will save your butt

 

[danraies]

Intel RST will indicate a failed drive as will the BIOS when you boot.

So at some point in the boot sequence I will get some kind of an error or message that stops the boot process and warns me that I have a faulty drive?

It is my understanding that if one drive fails I will be able to continue to use the RAID with only one functional drive until I can replace the second drive. Obviously I lose the functionality of the RAID, but is this the case?

 

[GhislainG]

So at some point in the boot sequence I will get some kind of an error or message that stops the boot process and warns me that I have a faulty drive?

THat's correct, but why not install Intel RST to monitor the drives?

It is my understanding that if one drive fails I will be able to continue to use the RAID with only one functional drive until I can replace the second drive. Obviously I lose the functionality of the RAID, but is this the case?

That's correct. Hopefully you don't rely on the RAID as a backup solution because it isn't. Backing up important information to an external device still is required.

 

[danraies]

Thanks for your help so far.

That's correct, but why not install Intel RST to monitor the drives?

I forgot about that - It's been a long time since I've seen it show up. I'm not exactly clear, but if I remember correctly this is a program that runs in the background in the OS and monitors my RAID for me? I vaguely remember getting notifications that IRST was protecting data the first couple of times I booted after installing Windows. Thanks for the reminder.

That's correct. Hopefully you don't rely on the RAID as a backup solution because it isn't. Backing up important information to an external device still is required.

Yes, I am aware of the difference. I feel like I'm also constantly warning people that file corruption gets mirrored, damage from power surges will likely destroy both drives, accidental deletion gets mirrored, viruses will affect both drives identically, your house could burn down, or any of a host of other terrible things could happen to both drives. I have a pretty good system for data security and backup.

 

[danraies]

get an electric static wrist band it will save your butt

I was wearing one. They don't ground completed circuits through your hand.

 

[danraies]

Best answer selected by danraies.

 

[GhislainG]

I forgot about that - It's been a long time since I've seen it show up. I'm not exactly clear, but if I remember correctly this is a program that runs in the background in the OS and monitors my RAID for me?

That's correct, but it can also be used to display the serial number of a drive, create, rebuild or migrate a RAID, etc.