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I have a server with 3 hard drives: one System Drive and two drives in RAID1 for data. Raid1 is done via Intel Storage Matrix software. Today Intel Storage Matrix said that array is degraded and must be rebuilt. I clicked rebuild array. After that I was no longer near this server. When I got back I was told that the process had finished but since they noticed that other computers could longer access the shared folders on the server, they restarted the server. After I logged back in, the data drive was gone for Windows (D: was now CDROM). And the Intel Storage Matrix Console showed a different picture: the little cross on red circle had gone away from "Port 0: INTEL SSDSA2M040G2GC" and this Port0 itself had moved from under "RAID Hard Drives" to "Non-RAID Hard Drives".

When Intel Matrix Storage Console is opened, it asks if I want to reset hard drives to non-raid drives: enter image description here

What should I do?

Henno
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  • http://download.intel.com/support/chipsets/imsm/sb/imsm_reference1.pdf says under "How do I move my RAID 1 volume to larger hard drives?" that clicking Yes does not destroy data in case of RAID1. So it is safe? – Henno Aug 11 '11 at 13:47

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You could spend a copious amount of time trying to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it. Or you can blow away the array and restore from last night's backup. I assume there wasn't much new data on the drive as it doesn't appear to have been working recently.

Chris S
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  • It holds all the sales of cashier's desk. It would be a lot of work trying to recreate all the sales from the cheques (and the date/time woud still be messed up). – Henno Aug 11 '11 at 18:30
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    What's wrong with restoring from backup? – Chris S Aug 11 '11 at 18:32
  • It turned out that the backups were stored on the same array. – Henno Aug 12 '11 at 09:08
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    Copies stored on the same computer aren't backups, they're just copies. I'm sorry you're learning the hard way, but these mistakes are the difference between hobbyists and professionals. – Chris S Aug 12 '11 at 12:24
  • Of course you're right. Next time when a customer wants to save money, I have a good story. But it's still their decision. – Henno Aug 15 '11 at 11:40
  • That's not a "money saving" decision. It's risk management. I appreciate the difference is lost on many "small businesses"; if you can't help them understand perhaps they're not a client you need. – Chris S Aug 15 '11 at 12:23
  • can you think of any theories what actually happened when I clicked rebuild? I expected the failed drive to be picked up again by the RAID software as I've seen with other RAID software. But after the rebuild was done, instead of single big sata non-raid system drive and raid1 array of two small drives for data there was this system drive (partition) shrunk to the size of these small drives and put into raid1 with one of the data drives and the other data drive appeared in "Non-RAID disks" section (where the system drive had previously been). All 3 drives had identical content (the OS) – Henno Aug 15 '11 at 12:25
  • The only actual explanations I can think of are that the Intel rake-RAID software "goofed", the Storage Matrix system isn't terribly robust (and though Intel tries to sell it as a server/workstation system, it's definitely developed with a consumer target in mind); or (you said you left while it was rebuilding) someone messed with with while you were gone and started clicking. – Chris S Aug 15 '11 at 12:29
  • They're understanding perfectly now. :) – Henno Aug 15 '11 at 12:32