Question Physically replacing a HHD in a Mediasonic H8R2-SU3S2 Raid+

[mmurley]

I had a drive fail in a Raid 0 JBOD configuration. But I cannot, for the life of me figure out how to actually replace the disk (other than physically inserting it).

As far as I can tell, only the Disk 1 is actually seen as formatted by Windows 10 when the drive enclosure with blank disks is initialized / formatted initially. Disk management shows Disk 1 as the total size partition (7+ TB in my case) and initialized / unallocated. Disks 2-4 are not initialized / not formatted.

There was only 1+ TB of files on the enclosure and they are backed up, so that's fine.

So when drive 4 failed I should have just been able to replace it with another 2 TB drive, right? Except that doesn't work. When I do the "drive" (enclosure) never shows.

I'd ask on Mediasonic's forum, but the administrator has never activated my account.

 

[kanewolf]

I had a drive fail in a Raid 0 JBOD configuration. But I cannot, for the life of me figure out how to actually replace the disk (other than physically inserting it).

As far as I can tell, only the Disk 1 is actually seen as formatted by Windows 10 when the drive enclosure with blank disks is initialized / formatted initially. Disk management shows Disk 1 as the total size partition (7+ TB in my case) and initialized / unallocated. Disks 2-4 are not initialized / not formatted.

There was only 1+ TB of files on the enclosure and they are backed up, so that's fine.

So when drive 4 failed I should have just been able to replace it with another 2 TB drive, right? Except that doesn't work. When I do the "drive" (enclosure) never shows.

I'd ask on Mediasonic's forum, but the administrator has never activated my account.

RAID 0 and JBOD are totally different. Which was it? RAID0 with data spread across drives or JBOD with each drive being independent ?

 

[mmurley]

RAID 0 and JBOD are totally different. Which was it? RAID0 with data spread across drives or JBOD with each drive being independent ?

Apparently I am confused by actual nomenclature versus Mediasonic forum posts.

Mediasonic says there are two types of RAID 0 - spanning mode (BIG) and striping mode - on these enclosures. Their manual calls it JBOD link to screen shot: https://photos.app.goo.gl/3f3AZemqhkB9NP8W9

On their forum the non-striping is (as far as I can tell) called "JBOD" by people when they don't call out striping.

My enclosure shows the RAID 0 SPN light .

I'd

 

[USAFRet]

You have the 8 bay enclosure?

From the confusing and non-standard nomenclature from Mediasonic, SPN == JBOD.
But RAID 0 and JBOD should never exist in the same sentence. 2 completely different things.

The user manual also never mentions what happens with a dead drive in JBOD config.

So...put the new drive in, reinitialize the array (which will kill all data on it), and recover the data from your backup.

 

[mmurley]

You have the 8 bay enclosure?

From the confusing and non-standard nomenclature from Mediasonic, SPN == JBOD.
But RAID 0 and JBOD should never exist in the same sentence. 2 completely different things.

The user manual also never mentions what happens with a dead drive in JBOD config.

So...put the new drive in, reinitialize the array (which will kill all data on it), and recover the data from your backup.

No, it's the 4 bay. I put the new disk in and nothing happened. The array doesn't show in anything. And I still have aHHD error indicator on the front panel (no light in the array).

 

[USAFRet]

No, it's the 4 bay. I put the new disk in and nothing happened. The array doesn't show in anything. And I still have aHHD error indicator on the front panel (no light in the array).

POssibly the whole array, such as it is, needs to be rebuilt.

I have a slightly different 4 bay MediaSonic
Just 4 completely individual dries.

 

[mmurley]

I fixed it (in a round-about way).

I changed the RAID to RAID 5, then put the new drive in bay 1 and restored the files.

Apparently drive 1 is always going to show as the original set up / file structure. Even when I deleted the partition and reformatted that 2 TB drive it showed as 7+ TB.

I would have to return the original drive 1 to an unutilized & unformated state & I don't know how to do that (and Google was no help).

I've also got Mediasonic Probox 4s (4 separate drives in 1 enclosures). I use drive pool software to turn them into virtual volumes. Much easier to replace failed drives.

 

[USAFRet]

And you do have a regularly scheduled backup of this?
RAID 5, JBOD, or whatever?

And FWIW, RAID 5 loses the capacity of one of the drives.
4x 2TB + RAID 5 = 6TB available space. (not 8TB/7.28TB)

 

[mmurley]

And you do have a regularly scheduled backup of this?
RAID 5, JBOD, or whatever?

And FWIW, RAID 5 loses the capacity of one of the drives.
4x 2TB + RAID 5 = 6TB available space. (not 8TB/7.28TB)

I know about the space reduction. That's why I was using their RAID 0 Spanning / JBOD.

I had this backed up because it was less than 2 TB of data. Backing up huge storage means huge backup.

I wish Mediasonic would actually explain how to replace failed drives in that configuration.

 

[USAFRet]

wish Mediasonic would actually explain how to replace failed drives in that configuration.

Exactly.