Array down!! Do you know about SATA Raid arrays? now with answers!
Written by Karl L. Gechlik | AskTheAdmin.com on June 28, 2007 – 7:14 am -
I have a buddy with a Buffalo Terastation Pro 2gb in a raid 5 array. They had major power outages in Manhattan yesterday and lets just say there was no UPS. When the power came back on the array smelled burnt and no power…
They have purchased another identical terastation but the drives show as failed and Buffalo Tech Support isnt very helpful. you figure they would want to help a customer that has purchased an expensive array and then bought a 2nd one to repair the first one that is still under warranty…
Does anyone know if I can connect these drives to an SATA Raid Controller card and have it read the data. Should i do this in Windows or Knoppix?
While your at it what are some of the advantages of SATA over IDE or SCSI?
Any reco’s for a good controller card that wont give me problems?
Help hurtin’ in manhattan. Leave us some comments or solutions in the comment field below or hit us @ info at asktheadmin.com dot com.
_TheAdmiN_
as a jumping off point I found this:
24 hours later I have my frankenstein terrastation connected to a new terrastation and the drives all connected to an Pci-Express SATA Raid Controller. After figuring out their correct order and downloading a SUPER DOPE program called UFSexplorer and reading this information here: I was able to mount my virtual array. Specify my raid 5 settings per that last article and BAM! I see files… Now we are setting up the new terra station to push the data to. Wow that was exauhsting!!!
Boys and Girls the moral of the story is always use a UPS and if you want to be brave and not spend a couple bucks on a UPS then I have one word for you… Ummm maybe two… INCREMENTAL BACKUPS!!!!!
Tags: backup, How To, Question, Troubleshooting
Posted in Uncategorized |
By The Slothman on Jun 28, 2007 | Reply
I wonder if this might help?
http://www.runtime.org/raid.htm
By Karl L. Gechlik on Jun 28, 2007 | Reply
Thanks Sloth - is there a trial of that to see if it works or is it pay and use?
Right now I am off to J and R to buy a sata raid card they have two of them one for $150 and for almost $300.
Has anyone had any experience with SATA Raid over SCSI?
Does it act the same? Will i screw my array by plugging it into the new controller?
Stay tuned for more breaking news!
By JohnBlaze on Jun 28, 2007 | Reply
Check out this
http://forum.linkstationwiki.net/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=1607
it looks like your problem
By Anonymous on Jun 28, 2007 | Reply
We went throught the same shit! you need to have a ups on that mf. Our data was backed up so we waited for the replacement and worked off our backup server. from your urgency i take it you dont have one.
Their are data recovery companies.; but for 2tb i am sure it would cost a fortune.
good luck and if you have specific questions post them
By Karl L. Gechlik on Jun 28, 2007 | Reply
That is correct annon No backup - zip zero o zilch and almost 1tb worth of data spanned over 4 500gb drives set up as a raid 5. (was set up as raid 5 anyway)
I just got these two cards:
Sonnet Tempo SATA PCI-X Serial ATA Hard Drive Controller
Four internal SATA ports / 3 Gb/s per port / Supports Mac OS X and Windows XP RAID / Hot-swap drive support … more info $159.99
Sonnet Tempo Serial ATA II X4P PCI-X Hard Drive Controller
4 SATA II compliant ports
I’m connecting it to a windows xp machine and will try to access it as is first and if that doesnt work i will try UFS Explorer.
This was the info I found here:
Data Recovery on x86 (Windows) using UFS Explorer
As with some other readers, I did not have access to a PPC box to recover data from my bricked Raid 5 TeraStation. Looking around on the net for some way to read the XFS Raid from a Windows box, I stumbled upon UFS Explorer[3] which can recover data from Linux partitions and Raid setups on a Windows box.
Initially, the software could see the partitions but failed to recognize the file system on the Raid. I have spent a few days working with them and they have come up with a new version which can now read the data from an TeraStation XFS formated Raid 5 setup.
The initial hardware setup simply involves connecting the four drives to an Windows box. Depending on your hardware setup, uou may need to get an additional IDE card to accomplish this. Once the hardware setup is completed, you can download the trial version of UFS Explorer at the link above and follow these steps.
Create a virtual raid (my disk order was 1, 3, 2, 4) but it may need adjusting depending on how you connected the disks
Select Raid 5, Stripe Size 64K and Left-Symetric.
Once the raid partition is created, right-click and select “Fine File System”.
If all works, you should then see the folder structure of the drive. The trial version of the software will let you browse all files and copy files which are < = 4K. The registration for an individual (non business) license is $40. Depending on your data, it is more than worth the cost!
–Sebby1234 12:36, 20 March 2007 (CET)
Im worried about the 5-8 hours of rebuild time. I really just need to get at the data.
By Anonymous on Jun 28, 2007 | Reply
I am happy to hear you ordeal has come to an end my friend. I was going to tell you this ufsexplorer is great and there are crack for it on the net.
By Karl L. Gechlik on Jun 28, 2007 | Reply
thanks for the nfo anon but to tell you the truth I downloaded the demo and it worked after minimal fussing around so i happily bought it.
I’m not one to call someone a pirate but arrrrr me matey…
If you pirate the good cheap stuff it wont be around anymore and you will only have the big boyz to deal with.
I guess as you grow up your views on this stuff change. Dont get me wrong Azerus is almost always open on my machine but im not trying to steal 40 bucks out of someones mouth.
TheTiredAdmiN
ONe
By The Slothman on Jun 29, 2007 | Reply
MacGyver aint got nothing on you.
Good job!!!
By Karl L. Gechlik on Jun 29, 2007 | Reply
Awww shucks Sloth your making me blush!
By Admino on Jun 29, 2007 | Reply
very interesting solution will this work with any sata raid array? Will it work on an incomplete array (minus 2 of 5 drives?)
By Karl L. Gechlik on Jul 1, 2007 | Reply
Yes Admino it is a great program $40 and it will work in all those situations.
The Terastation is still a great device for the money especially the pro with sata raid - but you need a UPS and a daily backup of mission critical data ALWAYS!
Admins - push for the daily offsite backup if you cant have that make sure you have a backup on a different box or medium.
A backup on the same box is NOT a backup no matter what you think.