I read it all – that was... detailed !
I see that your post got no reply at the time... Have you been able to recover something out of that mess ? And why did you post in the “Fun stuff” section ? (I guess that it's not the best place to post in order to elicit serious answers...)
A few notes :
– The “gurus” here seem to be offended whenever someone pronunces that word, which must sound like some kind of witch spell or Lovecraftian incantation :
Seagate.
– Generally speaking, you can't use your very limited experience with particular brands / models of HDDs to determine which are the most or the least reliable ;
it's not statistically significant, and the trend may be reversed for you neighbour, or yourself in another dimension.
– You have (or had?)
way too much data for your own good. (I have the same issue, I know what I'm talking about ! O_O)
– I'm wondering how you could rebuild 1.74TB of data out of empty drives. Did you scan them with a data recovery software, or did I miss something ?
– I don't know much about RAID, except that it's a
recipe for disaster if you rely on it for data safety (I only used RAID 1 at some point, and even with that I got more trouble than it is worth, so I ended up using the second drive as a proper external backup).
You are never really “protected” with RAID – and you should know it since your computer with all your precious archives could have been irrevocably destroyed during that
very litteral breakup of yours if it had been home at that fateful moment : that should have been a warning. If your data is really precious, you have to prepare for the worst (fire, robbery, thunder, angry lady...), and
secure the important files in more than one physical place. If you can't afford to secure everything, sort out the really important stuff (you'll knock your head on the wall until it bleeds if you lose it), the somewhat important stuff (you'll be really pissed if you lose it but your forehead won't be harmed), and the
expendable stuff (which you keep just for the sake of keeping it and won't make you bat your eyelid if you lose it).
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Also, will my plan of slowly replacing WD drives with Seagate ones actually work? and if so if i do manage to replace all 6 drives with 7200 RPM drives, will the raid spin up to that once the last slow drive has been replaced?
Most knowledgeable people here would say, as dear old Mr. T :
I pity the foo' ! I have no informed opinion on the matter, but theirs seems to be unanimous and substantiated : one particular Seagate HDD could last years with no hiccup, but
on average, recent Seagate HDDs (especially the “DM” ones from what I read here) have a very bad reputation among DR professionals.
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Also i have been eyeing off the rebuild button.
As a RAIDing newb, when would that actually be needed?
Well, I'd say that if you seem so clueless about what it does, even after the kind of failure you exposed and the thorough research that it entailed, then maybe you're not RAIDy yet for a peaceful RAIDing...
How much is 2 cents from Australia in Euros ? O_o