Best Disk Refresh Strategy for My Windows File Server

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Bert

Well-Known Member
Mar 31, 2018
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I have built a Windows Server 2016 R2 based a file service solution by using storage spaces for disk flexibility. I don't do raid but I do offline back up for data resiliency. I gave up on RAID after finding out that building RAID 5 array is slower than copying the data from the original source.

I also use ReFS for the backup file system and use NTFS for the regular usage. I have deduplication enabled on my file server and it uses decommissioned SAS drives.

In the past, I was constantly rebuilding my backup due to neverending RAID failure so I wasn't super worried but now my File Server is being stable close to 2 years. I am worried how to keep the data fresh on the hard drives. Is there a program that will smartly refresh the data on a file server? I found this on google but this looks like a very simple tool:

DiskFresh - Refresh Hard Disk Signal

Any insight on this software or a better software solution for my goal?
 
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Evan

Well-Known Member
Jan 6, 2016
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Why not use a tool like md5deep to generate the hashes for the files, it will both keep a record of the hash you can compare and also read the file.

I understand your concern but don’t think you really need to do anything much, or anything you can do won’t even have much affect. Read the files and watch for smart errors is probably about it.
 
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Bert

Well-Known Member
Mar 31, 2018
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If I understand correctly, when disk is not being read for a long time like several years, bits start to flip as magnetism wears off. I kept my drives off for long periods like several months and most of my data is archive. I am not sure how detecting failure with md5deep will help here since I want to prevent the "bit rot". It looks like Stablebit Scanner is what I am looking for.

My problems with RAID5 are mostly due to bad hardware. At one point, I was using faulty raid card and couldn't figure out for many days as drives were getting disconnected and I thought it was the drives. Then, one day several drives from my RAID5 array acted up and constantly getting dropped. They were old drives but enterprise class SATA drives so I don't quite understand what triggered several of them to get dropped all of a sudden. It was a pain for me to recover the data as I painfully baby sit the process and recover as much data before RAID 5 array degrades due to the next random drive getting dropped. I guess using RAID5 is fine if you are using reliable hardware. Yet, I have one RAID5 array on my workstation and it has been running fine with 8 drives over 5 years now, knock on wood.

Thanks for the help!
 
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