Installed a RAID for EHD

[navychop]

I bought the [ame]"AMS DS-DS3RPRO Black USB 2.0 & eSATA 2 HDD SATA External RAID Storage Enclosure" that someone here pointed out. More info on it [URL="http://www.usb-ware.com/esata-usb-raid-2-drive-ds3rpro.htm"]here.[/ame] On the side it says "Venus."

I also bought two WD 1TB Black SATA drives. Since the unit is set up as mirrored, or RAID 1, I actually only have 1TB available, not 2TB. But it's nice and safe.

The box is nice, and I like the handle on top as I sometimes move EHDs between my ViP722 DVRs.

The box comes with some instructions, badly translated into English. So badly, in fact, they have placed stickers inside covering the previous instructions. And still got it wrong. The assembly part of the instructions boils down to "use the screws to assemble." No problem, it's really pretty obvious how to attach the drives to the slide in "drawers." You can see on the pictures in the links where there are long latches. These latches also have tiny triangular "safety" locks that you can turn, with provided "key," to lock the drives in the enclosure so no one can easily remove them.

On the front, there is a "powered and ready" green light, and a green/red LED above each drive. And a single digit readout. And a power button. There is also a "backup software" button, but that does not apply to us.

On the back you plug in the power, and have a dip switch, fan hi/lo switch, USB and eSATA connectors, alarm disable switch and "RAID apply" switch. The fan blows out the back.

The instructions talk about powering on the device before you actually connect the power cord (mid line brick). And they do not use standard terminology such as RAID 1. They refer to it as SAFE or mirror, display 3. You can span or do other options. And there is software, but it is not needed for this purpose.

I set the dip switches per the directions, but could not get it to change from "1" in the display to "3" - JBOD to mirrored. Finally I was about to call the company but fiddled with moving the dips back and forth repeatedly and it suddenly worked.

Transferred some expendable programs over and played a bit of one. Works just fine. Not completely quiet, but certainly more than acceptable, considering you can just turn it off when not in use.

More later, but late for supper.

 

[gadgtfreek]

Cool, hope it works well for you. Sounds nice having the lights above each drive.

Better change your title to Raid-1 before Smith chastises you

 

[Smith P.]

Wt'ta RAID ?

[Actually I can talk for myself without proxy. - your topic was misleading because of "2 TB" wording and no RAID level.
This one is neutral - no size, no RAID id. ]

 

[Smith P.]

I would test it first - disconnect and reconnect one disk and watch how DVR will works with it - will try transfer and play from it during RAID rebuilding process.
Who knows how it could behave.

 

[whatchel1]

Too Late

Cool, hope it works well for you. Sounds nice having the lights above each drive.

Better change your title to Raid-1 before Smith chastises you

Title says it all.

 

[navychop]

I would test it first - disconnect and reconnect one disk and watch how DVR will works with it - will try transfer and play from it during RAID rebuilding process.
Who knows how it could behave.

I did, and it doesn't. Online troubleshooting now.

No errors reported, unless one wants to count a brief red flash in the second, drive 1 slot. It appeared to be working just fine. So I powered it up with just drive 0 in. Looks great. Then with just drive 1. Blank drive. Swapped drives, repeated. Nothing seen. Now I've got one drive drive with dozens of hours of HD on it. Drive 1 is suddenly blinking red a few times, then mostly green. Not a set pattern. If it's drive rebuilding, I hope I don't lose the stuff I've put on it. Dumb of me not to thoroughly test it first. But it appeared to be working fine. No troubleshooting in the "manual" nor is there much of a description of the blinking lights - still trying to decipher that part. I "think" (so close to "assume") that it means it is rebuilding the RAID onto drive 1. Never saw a red light, even momentarily, on drive 0.

BTW, it came with DriveClone 3 Personal OTB software. Which will never grace my computer.

 

[gadgtfreek]

I did not want to take the chance of mine trying to rebuild. When I finished taking turns pulling each drive to make sure they were copies of each other, and that the 722k would not notice, I transferred the shows to the internal hdd, then reformatted the My Book with the WD raid manager. I then reconnected it to the 722k, the it format, then moved my shows back over.

 

[navychop]

Well, I'll let it run overnight and check it again tomorrow night. I'd hate to have to send it back.

I did try to access the unit while it's doing this "rebuild" (if that's what it's doing). It responded kinda slow and made more noise than usual, but appears to be fine, no missing programs.

 

[navychop]

DON'T BUY THIS ONE!

She's dead. Appeared to rebuild just fine, but testing one drive at a time is erratic. Sometimes it says words to the effect "you have connected an unsupported device to the USB port." Sometimes works just fine. Obviously, I can't depend upon this RAID in case of failure.

I'll report back on how well the vendor handles the return.

 

[harshness]

Note that mirroring (or any RAID application) defies the single LUN requirement of the DISH EHD solution.

 

[navychop]

Yet others report success with RAID boxes. Not sure the DVR could "see" the difference, but that is beyond my skill level. Is there some inherent reason they would not be reliable?

 

[gadgtfreek]

Note that mirroring (or any RAID application) defies the single LUN requirement of the DISH EHD solution.

Speak English man.

 

[gadgtfreek]

She's dead. Appeared to rebuild just fine, but testing one drive at a time is erratic. Sometimes it says words to the effect "you have connected an unsupported device to the USB port." Sometimes works just fine. Obviously, I can't depend upon this RAID in case of failure.

I'll report back on how well the vendor handles the return.

If you can send it ALL back, grab the My Book Mirror. It's working great for me.

 

[navychop]

Those come with installed drives though, don't they? I already have 2 1TB HDDs, WD Blacks. Not gonna send them back, they seem to be fine.

 

[Smith P.]

Not applicable here.

Note that mirroring (or any RAID application) defies the single LUN requirement of the DISH EHD solution.

That's irrelevant point in a thread about HW RAID implementation.

 

[navychop]

Called the company. They suggest that in "3" - mirrored - it may or may not see a single installed drive correctly, as it "expects" two. That would explain why sometimes it appears to work, and sometimes it gives an unrecognized/unsupported error msg. They suggest I put it in JBOD mode, which will then see two identical volumes. Or just the one, if only one drive is installed.

Does this sound reasonable to you? Smith P especially, your thoughts on this?

 

[harshness]

That's irrelevant point in a thread about HW RAID implementation.

If it were irrelevant as you insist, DISH probably wouldn't have been so consistent in recommending against it.

The Technical Chats get this question pretty much each time out and the answer has remained the same. If it is RAID implementation dependent, then offering a blanket assurance as you have is irresponsible.

 

[Lord_Vader]

Called the company. They suggest that in "3" - mirrored - it may or may not see a single installed drive correctly, as it "expects" two. That would explain why sometimes it appears to work, and sometimes it gives an unrecognized/unsupported error msg. They suggest I put it in JBOD mode, which will then see two identical volumes. Or just the one, if only one drive is installed.

Does this sound reasonable to you? Smith P especially, your thoughts on this?

You don't want JBOD. Thats just lumping them together to make one big disk. Its like RAID 0 without the RAID.

I do think that you may have to manually set the DIP swtiches when you pull a drive from the enclosure. I think that is what the tech meant. You want your RAID 1 settings until a drive fails. If you pull the drive out, you switch it to JBOD mode to access the single drive. You put it back to RAID 1 when you put the drive back.

 

[whatchel1]

Is

Speak English man.

he is speaking English just happens to be geek English.

 

[Paradox-SJ]

JBOD will NOT work....