@MikeCross That is a very worrying comment, I believe!? Is this RAID on the machine or is it RAID in a NAS?
How can windows fix problems that only occur when the data is read and where data does not appear to be corrupt on the disk drive. Your comments about problems that “fixed themselves” in PL5.4.0 would suggest that there is an intermittent “read” problem or a problem with one RAID drive but not the other (depends on the RAID configuration you are running) so reads are taking the data from alternate drives - what “fix” did Windows undertake that “fixed” this problem, what fix could Windows undertake that could ever fix such a problem!?
I would suggest multi-bit errors are occurring that are “creeping” past the parity checks to deliver corrupted data to the Windows application without the I/O being rejected, the last time I saw that was on a mainframe and the database software was complaining about checksum errors! The logs showed lots of failed and retried I/Os but some were getting through undetected by the hardware but not by the database software!?
But I await your comments about the “fix” that windows applied and the type of RAID that you are running, i.e.
- RAID 0 (Striping) RAID 0 is taking any number of disks and merging them into one large volume. …
- RAID 1 (Mirroring) …
- RAID 5/6 (Striping + Distributed Parity) …
- RAID 10 (Mirroring + Striping) …
and whether that is on the PC or in a NAS.
Hopefully I am simply being alarmist but @Guenterm’s comments are important.
I run a NAS but as JBOD and it holds copies of data I want to be able to access when my machines are switched off - loss of the NAS means loss of convenience not data! The idea of running RAID “scares” me, when 1 drive fails you are down to one drive if running RAID 1 and have a potentially compromised system with other RAID options until the “hole is plugged”, I have watched RAID systems on on-line mainframes being re-silvered and …
RAID was being used for performance and to maintain up-time for a 24/7 system but it was not without its issues.
Yes and no!
It is too easy to backup data that has become corrupted and overwrite a perfectly good backup copy. Versioning is useful, space permitting!
I use comparison software but the comparison is limited to size and timestamps (by me) to keep the comparison times reasonable. But this is itself a “risky” procedure and I could overwrite all of the 5 copies I keep, one of those copies is on portable HDDs and are supposed to be kept in a tin-box (EMP proof!!??) or better in a fire-proof safe, in the garage or garden office or shed to provide an “air-gap”!