Promise Pegasus R4 – drive replacement procedure

[Rainer Wirth]

Hi Adrian,

first of all why Raid0? I would go with Raid5.
In your case, you’ve lost all your data on your raid, so you have to built a new raid with your 4 drives.
Second: why did you buy a WDC instead of the same samsung HD’s you have already in your raid?
Perhaps it will work with the WDC, you have to try.
It is very simple, you have to perform a new disc array within your software.

cheers

Rainer

factstory
Rainer Wirth
phone_0049-177-2156086
Mac pro 8core
Adobe,FCP,Avid
several raid systems

[Rainer Wirth]

there is a Promise compatibility list of drives with the R4.

cheers

Rainer

factstory
Rainer Wirth
phone_0049-177-2156086
Mac pro 8core
Adobe,FCP,Avid
several raid systems

[Bob Zelin]

Ranier is correct about everything he is saying.
You purchased a non matching WD drive. You had a RAID 0, so when a drive fails, you lose all your data.
Had your system been set to RAID 5 (which is every Promise RAID array ever sold), you would just put in the replacement drive, and the rebuild would have restored everything. So SOMEONE created the RAID 0 for you. Perhaps this was a used system.

Bob Zelin

Bob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
bobzelin@icloud.com

[Adrian Begon]

Hi folks

first up, thanks a mill for the replies – hugely appreciated! Second apologies for some incorrect information on my part – the raid was (and still is) set to Raid 5 – when I wrote the post I was a bit scrambled and managed to mess that up – not exactly helping myself there. My situation now is that I figured out that somehow I’d put the new drive into it’s own Raid array. Consequently I managed then to unconfigure it and performed a disk array build and have now managed to get it into the same raid array as the other drives.

So now my raid array and other info looks like this (see images) which I think means I’m back in the right place

You guys are correct – I bought the Raid on ebay 6 months ago and it’s only now that a drive has gone bad on me. So I’ve got 2 more questions.
The drive I bought was a Samsung HD – I got that right – but do you think I should change out the WDC drive for another Samsung? Is there a high chance of that failing?
Secondly – in this system all drives atm are 1TB – could I swap them all out for 2TB drives?Would that work on the Promise Peg R4?
Many thanks in advance

[Rainer Wirth]

Hi Adrian,

when we buy a used system, we swop all drives and replace them for new ones..
You have to use a set of drives out of the compatability list of Promise.
Always use exactly the same drives.
We always buy 5 drives, one drive as a spare, which is stored, just in case.
The other drives out of the used system we use as single HD’s for second ot third back-up storage.
When one drive already failed, it is likely that the others can fail too. You just don’t know how many working hours the drives have. With enterprise class drives, they last around 50.000 working hours. Either a drive quits within the first year, or it works around 5-7 years. When you buy enterprise class drives you have a 5 year warranty, so a drive dying within the first year will be replaced by the manufacturer.
First of all – buy a min. 3TB HD and save your data.
Second: rebuild your Raid out of 4 new HD’s from the compatibility list of Promise.
Use Raid 5.
You will sleep much better.
cheers

Rainer

factstory
Rainer Wirth
phone_0049-177-2156086
Mac pro 8core
Adobe,FCP,Avid
several raid systems

[Adrian Begon]

Hi Rainer

thanks so much for this excellent advice – I will follow up on it for sure and now replace all drives with new ones

hugely appreciated
Ade