Raid Recovery Tips

Problem:
After changing RAID modes, the Download and Public shares are sometimes not available. This is an intermittent problem, typically when changing to SPAN mode.

Cause:
This is a firmware issue, and will be fixed in a follow-on release.

Solution:
As a workaround, restore the system to factory defaults, and then select the new RAID mode.

Question

A WD My Book drive connected to a HP Computer via FireWire does not format correctly after changing the RAID mode via the WD RAID Manager utility. This affects only the following drives: My Book Pro II, WD My Book Premium II, and WD My Book Studio I and II Edition.

Answer

Problem:
A My Book Pro II, Premium II, or Studio II Edition hard drive connected to a HP Computer via FireWire may not format correctly after changing the RAID mode via the WD RAID Manager utility. This issue only occurs on HP Computers running Windows XP that incorporate the Agere L-Fw3227-100 FireWire Chipset.

Cause:
This issue…

All WD ShareSpace drives support Spanning, RAID-0 (Striping), RAID-1 (Mirroring), and RAID-5 (Redundancy with parity). Each RAID mode may or may not be available for usage based upon how many internal hard drives are installed in the enclosure.
Please Note: Based upon how the WD ShareSpace RAID is setup, the WD ShareSpace will show different available capacities:

Qty of 2 – 1TB internal hard drives:
• Spanning – 2TB
• RAID-0 – 2TB
• RAID-1 – 1TB
• RAID-5 – Not Supported

Qty of 3 – 1TB internal hard drives:
• Spanning – 3TB
• RAID-0 – 3TB
• RAID-1 – Not Supported
• RAID-5 – 2TB

Qty of 4 – 1TB internal hard drives:
• Spanning – 4TB
• RAID-0 – 4TB
• RAID-1 – Not Supported
• RAID-5 –…

All WD ShareSpace drives support Spanning, RAID-0 (Striping), RAID-1 (Mirroring), and RAID-5 (Redundancy with parity). Each RAID mode may or may not be available for usage based upon how many internal hard drives are installed in the enclosure.

Please Note:   Depending on how the WD ShareSpace RAID is setup, that RAID array may not be recoverable from a drive failure.

Qty of 2 – 1TB internal hard drives:

• RAID-0 – 2TB – (Not recoverable)
• RAID-1 – 1TB – (Recoverable)
• RAID-5 – (Not Supported)

Qty of 3 – 1TB internal hard drives:

• Spanning – 3TB – (Non recoverable)
• RAID-0 – 3TB – (Non recoverable)
• RAID-1 – (Not Supported)…

Advantages of RAID

RAID is an acronym for Redundant Array of independent Disks. With RAID enabled on a storage system you can connect two or more drives in the system so that they act like one big fast drive or set them up so that one drive in the system is used to automatically and instantaneously duplicate (or mirror) your data for real-time backup.

There are three reasons you might want a RAID system of drives.

1. You need tons of storage space and you need it to be fast. (RAID 0)
2. You want to instantaneously and automatically backup your data. (RAID 1)
3. You want both. (RAID 5)

Which…