Question Rebuild Raid 5 (4x4TB) one drive failed but seems to be working again

Apr 28, 2020
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Hello,

I run an ASUSTOR NAS (AS6204T) with 4 Seagate Barracuda 4TB drives. Drive number 4 went from "Good" to "Faulty" status in my Storage Manager yesterday. It listed my Volume 1 Status as "Degraded" with no remaining fault tolerance (expected). I unplugged the drive and plugged it back in, and it is currently Rebuilding/Synchronizing. This is the first time I've ever had issues with a drive, so I'm not sure how much trust I should place in this drive. The drives were all purchased in November 2017. Can I expect this drive to fail again? What could have caused it to become faulty and cause me to have to unplug/plug it back in? Should I trust this drive or purchase a new one? What could be the root issue here? It is currently at 25% complete in the rebuilding process. Thanks!

Alex
 

kanewolf

Titan
Moderator
Hello,

I run an ASUSTOR NAS (AS6204T) with 4 Seagate Barracuda 4TB drives. Drive number 4 went from "Good" to "Faulty" status in my Storage Manager yesterday. It listed my Volume 1 Status as "Degraded" with no remaining fault tolerance (expected). I unplugged the drive and plugged it back in, and it is currently Rebuilding/Synchronizing. This is the first time I've ever had issues with a drive, so I'm not sure how much trust I should place in this drive. The drives were all purchased in November 2017. Can I expect this drive to fail again? What could have caused it to become faulty and cause me to have to unplug/plug it back in? Should I trust this drive or purchase a new one? What could be the root issue here? It is currently at 25% complete in the rebuilding process. Thanks!

Alex
Hopefully there is nothing that is irreplaceable and only-copy on that device. RAID is not a replacement for backups.
If your data is important, I would replace it.
 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
One of the issues with a RAID 5 and all drives bought at the same time is...if one fails and you replace it, the hours long rebuild process stresses the others from that same batch. Banging on them 100% for hours, possibly killing one of the remaining 3. If that happens during the rebuild, all is lost.

RAID 5 should never be the sole repository of your data, or a data redundancy tool.
It needs an actual backup as well.

But yes, replace that Drive #4.