I'm experimenting with various RAID configurations of a new Adaptec 6805 (not the 'E' model)
Attached are 8x Hitachi 5400RPM 2TB SATA 6Gb Drives using the miniSAS to SATA cables provided.
I created a RAID6 array comprising four disks, two from each connector.
Then I tried expanding the array to the remainder of the disks.
My problem is that raid reconfiguration never seems to progress.
After more than 24 hours the Adaptec Storage Manager still shows that it's at 0% completion. I'm not actively using the logical array – so I can't imagine that should be a signficant factor.
- Is this normal for an online reconfiguration?
- Is this indicative of the amount of time it would take to rebuild the array should a drive fail?
- Is it possible to force an offline reconfiguration of the array? Assuming that would speed things up.
Edit:
Thanks for the responses.
Just to clarify – there's no load on the drives, and very little data (~5GB).
After about 35 hours it finally showed about 1% – so, I gave up and deleted the array.
My main concern really is: If it takes ~35 hours to do 1%, extrapolating that out means it'd be somewhere around 4-5 months to do a rebuild if a drive failed.
I'll test this out by unplugging a drive and seeing how long it takes to rebuild.
Best Answer
I have an Adaptec 5405Z with 20x2TB 7200 RPM drives on a SAS Backplane. I attempted to do a reconfig on it to go from 8 drives to 20 drives. We use it for Security Video Storage. Since the box was essentially brand new, I figured why not see how long it woudl take with ~2TB of data on the array. After about a week and it only getting to 10%, I gave up. Backed it up, wiped it and started over. I tried the same test with RAID 10 and RAID 5, both seemed to crawl, but would have eventually finished. Though in truth, I am certain my DVR software was slowing down the reconfig by constantly writing to the disk. Did you factor additional load on the drives into the rebuild?
Obviously I have a few more drives than you, but for whatever reason, the reconfig seems to drag on for quite some time. When I tried to get Adaptec to answer the question, they weren't much help as the answer seemed to be "it depends on your configuration and how much data is on the array".