1. The WD icon is also the way that you access the drive’s status, or as in this case, the drive’s RAID status. When the RAID is healthy, you will see the blue WD icon. Clicking on the WD icon opens a short menu that leads to launching the RAID Manager. From there, you can reconfigure the RAID mode of the drive.

   

2. If something happens to the RAID status of the drive, a warning will be issued.

   

For RAID 1 (Mirrored)

1. The WD logo will flash to dark blue, if it’s a degraded RAID 1.

   

2. When you click on the WD icon, a menu opens up showing the WD My Book RAID USB. When you rollover it, another menu pops up giving the status of the drive. In this case, it shows RAID Status: Degraded. Now click on Launch WD RAID Manager.

   

3. When you click on Launch WD RAID Manager, a Drive Configurations window opens up showing what has happen. In this case, a drive has failed and needs to be replaced.

   

4. You will notice in Drive Configurations that you still show a capacity. This is because the drive was part of a RAID 1 configuration, and the data is still available. Once the drive is replaced the data will be rewritten to the new drive.

   

For RAID 0 (Striped)

1. Again, a warning would be issued, if the drive’s RAID status was having problems. In this case, the flashing red means that you are having a problem with your RAID 0 configuration being degraded.

   

2. This time, you would see a red bullet in front of WD My Book RAID USB instead of a yellow bullet, as is found when a RAID 1 Drive has degraded. And in the menu on the left, you would also see RAID Status: Config Problem.

   

3. Clicking on Launch WD RAID Manager opens the Drive Configurations window. This time, however, you would see a 0 under Capacity. That’s because when one of the drives fails while in RAID 0 mode, as it did in this case, you immediately lose all the data. You would need to go to a data recovery company to possibly regain the lost data, if you didn’t have the data saved on another drive.

   

Examples of what it does on single WD My Book drives:

• When you mouse over the WD icon, the WD Drive Manager will show you the drive status: Drive Name, Volume Letter, Percent Used, Temperature Status. If the drive is healthy, the icon is steady and dark blue.

  

• When you right-click on the Drive Manager icon, it will allow you to safely remove the drive.

  

• Left-click on the WD My Book external drive you want to safely remove.

  

• You can also left-click on About WD Drive Manager to see what version of Drive Manager you have.

  

  

Examples of what it does on dual WD My Book RAID edition drives:

• When you mouse over the WD icon, the WD Drive Manager will show you the drive status just as with the single drives, including the RAID status. The RAID status tells you what kind of RAID configuration your drive is in, and whether it’s healthy.

  

• When you right-click on the Drive Manager icon, now, it now only allows you to safely remove the drive…

  

  

• It also allows you to enter the RAID Manager.

  

• When you left-click on RAID Manager, you open up this window that allows you to change the RAID configuration.

  

What the various blinking lights mean:

• A flashing Light Blue/Dark Blue Drive Manager icon indicates that the drive may need to be formatted or has lost its partition.

  

• A flashing RED Drive Manager icon indicates that a RAID 0 configuration has gone bad. This is caused by either a failed RAID controller card, or a failed drive.

  Note: if a drive has failed in a RAID 0, data is most likely lost as there is no data redundancy.

  

• A flashing Blue icon could indicate a Degraded RAID 1. A degraded RAID 1 could be likewise caused by either a failed RAID controller card, or a failed drive.

  Note: As long as data is not corrupted, your data is most likely still intact, as RAID 1 provides data redundancy.