RAID Use Case

[lamwilli]

I am building a new workstation with TPM so I can run Windows 11. The motherboard features RAID. In my simple mind, I could set up a stripped RAID 1 SSD boot partition and a RAID 0 HDD data partition. My boot partition would be redundant and fast while the data partition would present a single huge logical volume.

Knowing that SSDs degrade over time, I plan to use Spinrite to periodically "refresh" the drives.

I don't want to break the RAID configuration on the workstation, so I expect to remove drives and attach them to an old system where I can run Spinrite.

Question: Can I use my m.2 and SATA to USB adapters to connect the drives from the RAID arrays in the workstation to the computer running Spinrite? If so, what are the caveats?

Many thanks.

 

[peterblaise]

SpinRite 6.1 is slower when testing a USB drive than when
testing a SATA drive.

SpinRite 6.1 may be compromised by BIOS access to less
than a full USB drive.

Some folks suggest doing a secure erase on a drive pulled
from a RAID so that any 'repairs' done to that drive do not
confuse the RAID when the drive is reinserted, instead, the
RAID reconstructs the missing data onto the blanked drive
when it is inserted, so secure erase may accomplish your
goals without needing to run SpinRite 6.1 to 'refresh' a
drive - your mileage may vary, a SpinRite 6.1 Level 3 that
does not engage DynaStat may allow reinsertion of RAID
drive without needing reconstruction, so try:

SPINRITE NORAMTEST LEVEL 3 DYNASTAT 1 NOREWRITE​

The 'no rewrite' command line option tells SpinRite to
leave any impartially / unsuccessfully read sector 'as is',
letting the RAID decide what to do; if we get no such
sectors, we're good to go.

Personally, any SSD with failure to read successfully is
toast, and I'd move on from it.

 

[DanR]

Question: Can I use my m.2 and SATA to USB adapters to connect the drives from the RAID arrays in the workstation to the computer running Spinrite? If so, what are the caveats?

Possibly, but likely not. SpinRite 6.1, like its venerable predecessor SpinRite 6.0, is limited to accessing USB drives via the BIOS. Therefore, SpinRite will only be able to see what the BIOS can see, and access what the BIOS can access. In most cases that will be limited, problematic, and confusing.

See this thread for more info: https://forums.grc.com/threads/usb-support-in-spinrite-6-1.1479/

 

[lamwilli]

Peter & Dan, Many thanks for taking time to reply. Both responses were helpful.