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How to find whether a drive in raid is not working. In my office there are around 4 systems which have raid storage setup. They boot fine. The raid is configured for data backup. It is a bit risky to trust on single hard drive. Because if it is not properly configured then I may lost everything. I had tried to find out a set of different ways through which I can predict or find whether a raid drive is failed or not.
You will get error on your screen. If you had installed the OS on the raid drive, then it will not boot. It is a hardware failure. You will get the indication on the desktop instantly. If the drives are new then you do not require to worry.
Sometime it is not easy to find that which drive in the raid is failed if it is configured only for data backup. This is a main issue is big servers. Who have multiple hard drive connected on them. The first thing is to go for a regular maintenance checkup. To identify whether the raid drive function or not. If you locate any issue then you have to act instantly. You can assign a drive letter to the hard drive. It is visible in My Computer. If that goes up then the drive is failed. There are few good testing tools available which are capable of giving you health status. Through which you can find out whether this drive is failed or not. They are also called as hard drive testing software. Download and install Hitachi Drive Fitness Test. You can run the drive at a regular time interval so that you can find out the problem if there is any. The drive gives you information on current health status. This drive does not work in Windows. You will have to create a iso file from it and then you can run a scan. It will scan and give you information on the drive health status. If it is having any kind of error then it is the time to change it.
If you are using a powerful data backup process then there is nothing to worry about the hardware failure. You can download a good software and use it. It has a automated process which copies data regularly and save it from crash or issues.
Many hard drive comes with SMART capabilities. This tool allow you to locate the current drive status. All you have to do is download a windows utility in which you can run and test it. The tool is called as HDD Scan. This tool is amazing. I run this after a frequent time period to identify major hardware problem with my system. It is a free software. And it can help you to keep a close watch on various problem of your system. If you are on Windows then it is not so complicated to locate a problem in defective raid drive. But if you are on Linux then you have to work with certain parameters. There is no hardware available that can tell us the current status. All you have to do is login to that system and checkup raid status. Also there is no software available which can predict RAID failure. All you have to do is download a bunch of good testing software and run them. At the end you will get a log report which give out more clear information about the problem.