Looking for a disk Management plug-in/software

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H

hatbrox

New Member
Jul 28, 2011
15
1
3
Hi,

Back in the old days, my first home server was a windows home server V1.
I used a disk management plug-in called "Disk Management for Windows Home Server"
It was fantastic as it showed a 3D view of your exact computer case and a see-through view of the internal hard drives.
If a disk had a problem, you could make that disk LED blink in a different pattern so you could easily locate it to remove it. I really miss that software and its great features.

My current server is a 16-disk hot-swap case with windows 2012. I just happen to need to remove a particular disk (which works fine and is not part of my FlexRAID setup)

from the OS to the actual disk, there is 2 SAS HBA, 2 SAS to SATA cables (8 ports each) and then the front chassis with the hot-swap cage.

I have no clue how I can know which disk to pull out.

If only I had a software in which I could just click on the disk name and make it blink....

I don't think I want to tu unplug all disks one by one, reboot and risk loosing my RAID

I'd love some suggestions.

Many thanks
 
M

Mike

Member
May 29, 2012
482
16
18
EU
If the disk still works and all the others are idle you could read the hell out of it. That oughta blink the LED.
 
H

hatbrox

New Member
Jul 28, 2011
15
1
3
it seems that the led on each hot swap bay does not report any disk activity. It's just a light that would only blink in case of problem/failure with the disk.

So I'm gonna pull out the disks one by one until I found the one I need! It's actually a great test for a my RAID to see how it handles the situation. I'll sure back up the important stuffs.

Or maybe do this with a linux bootCD...

thank you all for your comments.
 
H

hatbrox

New Member
Jul 28, 2011
15
1
3
Chuckleb said:
Wouldn't you have a lot of downtime while things rebuild? Downtime of not removibg drives at least...
Click to expand...
not at all. it's a special software RAID, called FlexRaid.
I just stop the RAID storage pool and each drive are available again to the operating system. then I unplugged the disk one by one until I found the one.
I reconnected the other disks (hot swap), and restart the storage pool. Not a single reboot was needed.
there is no rebuild at all.
I did a quick "validate" of the pool just to be on the safe side.

FlexRaid is an excellent RAID solution with great flexibility for home users like me who has tens of TB of media file to stream in the house.
I've been using it for about 4 years and never lost data (got a couple of scary nights, though)
 
Jeggs101

Jeggs101

Well-Known Member
Dec 29, 2010
1,530
242
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I switch between these two:
Microsoft Excel
Google Docs Spreadsheet

They take seconds and are easy to view on my phone. 2.5" and 3.5" drives are usually aligned in some grid with 90 degree angles so spreadsheets work great.
 
Patrick

Patrick

Administrator
Staff member
Dec 21, 2010
12,535
5,861
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Heh I have a little spreadsheet that has the colo + what is in each of the nodes laid out.
 
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