Questions tagged [hard-drive]

Questions about hard disks' performance, issues, tips, and software.

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0 answers
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mdadm raid1, [1/2] disks failed, safe to reboot?

I am seeing the following under /proc/mdstat Personalities : [raid1] md1 : active raid1 sda2[0](F) sdb2[1] 976554876 blocks super 1.1 [2/1] [_U] bitmap: 4/8 pages [16KB], 65536KB chunk md0 : active ...
1 vote
2 answers
963 views

What should the total space be for 4 3TB Drives in RAID10 configuration?

I just configured 4 3TB drives in a RAID-10 configuration but the total disk space in the RAID is 4TB. I used the following guide to setup the RAID-10, RAID-10 Intall. Shouldn't the size if the RAID-...
2 votes
2 answers
461 views

Hosting server's harddisk crashed [closed]

My hosting provider has told me that the server harddisk that I am currently using is crashed and they failed to recover most of the data and they only managed to recover some files or folder from the ...
0 votes
3 answers
2k views

How to estimate hard drive usage on Linux?

I have a Linux server (Debian) that serves several thousands of live connections. It is easy to find out the memory and CPU usage (in percent) of my system, so I can predict when I will need to ...
9 votes
2 answers
6k views

How can I split a drive image created with 'dd' into separate files for each partition?

I created an image of a failing drive with: dd if=/dev/sde of=/mnt/image001.dd The drive had only two partitions: Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sde1 * ...
1 vote
2 answers
218 views

NAS Hard drive configuration advice?

Just got a 4 bay NAS. I want to set it up as optimal as possible. I was thinking of getting 3 x 1TB hard drives and setting up as RAID 5. The disk usage will probably be around 1TB max but there is ...
2 votes
1 answer
4k views

How to see information about hard drives in Windows Server 2003 using Dell PERC 6/i Integrated RAID Controller

I just found out one of my servers are reporting hard drive error but I'm having problems extracting the information I want. I've downloaded Acronis Drive Monitor so I could see hard drive health and ...
2 votes
2 answers
6k views

Does there exist a bootable USB key with shred? [closed]

Does anyone know if there exist a bootable USB key with shred that detects all harddrives and shreds them automatically? It would be great if it had a config file, where I could set the shred value ...
7 votes
7 answers
8k views

What is faster? A local mechical hard drive or a solid state drive over gigabit ethernet?

SSDs are rather new, so I couldn't find this information on the Internet. Would the performance of a local hard drive connected using SATA2 get out performed by a SSD over gigabit ethernet? In terms ...
2 votes
1 answer
1k views

Transfer Files From Multiple External USB Drives to Linux Server San Storage

We want to transfer files from multiple external USB drives to a Linux server connected to SAN storage. The USB Drives are formated with NTFS and contain media i.e. Images/Videos and will each range ...
0 votes
2 answers
208 views

Will a raid 10 help my db server in terms of trans/sec?

I've been reading about 10k drives being able to run 166 transactions per second vs 250/sec on 15k drives, which in both cases is just the number of rotations per second. What does this really mean ...
6 votes
2 answers
9k views

Dell PERC 4 (PowerEdge 2850): Unresolved configuration mismatch between disks(s) and NVRAM

We had an extended power outage (almost four hours); now I have a Dell PowerEdge 2850 server which is giving me this error (from a PERC 4e/DI) on boot up: All drives are listed in the PERC ...
9 votes
2 answers
5k views

High disk I/O when cache is used?

A few days ago I noticed a disk I/O wait and disk activity drop (which was great). Then I also notice that my cache was full(*) and fragmented. Then I flushed cache. After that, disk latency and disk ...
2 votes
3 answers
262 views

Odd variance in disk performance testing results

I started out trying to do some simple performance tests. "Which of these disks is faster, and by how much" kind of things. I didn't need much precision, I just wanted a rough idea. It's turned ...
3 votes
5 answers
2k views

c:\windows\installer Folder

On 1 of our main servers running Windows Server 2003 some bright spark decided to only partition c:\ with 20GB on a 250GB Harddrive. Problem I have is c:\windows\installer folers id taking up 13GB. ...
3 votes
5 answers
8k views

SATA Drive Replacement on Dell PowerEdge R410

I just talked to our Dell rep about purchasing some PowerEdge R410s and R510s and he made a comment that the SATA drives are 'special' and can't be replaced by aftermarket drives because of some ...
6 votes
2 answers
13k views

kvm low io performance

performance of my setup is quite good (geekbench, how it 'feels', ...) even disc throughput (libvirt on raw lvm-partition) is very close to the raw performance on the server) but IOP/s are as low as ...
2 votes
3 answers
423 views

8MB/10K RAID5 vs 2x 64MB/7.2K RAID10

I'm looking at replacing an old file server sharing a single RAID5 volume powered by 6 10K rpm disks with 8MB caches. The replacement will be 2 RAID10 volumes of 4 disks each. The new disks have 64MB ...
0 votes
2 answers
2k views

Disk warning 51 on Windows 2008 x64 Standard R1

I keep getting a disk warning 51 message in the system log every few months. It eventually causes the server to crash (killing all my network services), forcing me to do a hard reboot. Full error (...
-3 votes
1 answer
2k views

What is difference with server harddisk? [closed]

I want to know is there harddisk specially for server? What is the name of it? If I am using home external harddisk to serve files for client, what is the difference with it when using server harddisk?...
1 vote
2 answers
127 views

Testing for faulty HD or RAM

I have a Fedora server hosted remotely and for the last couple of days simple processes seem to be causing the server to slow down incredibly. I am starting to feel that the RAM or the HD might have ...
1 vote
1 answer
151 views

Frequent Disk Write

I am making a dataminer which needs to write to around 50 different files every 30 seconds. Each file is around 50kb. This process will run 24/7, 365 days a year. The dataminer is build on Node.js and ...
21 votes
8 answers
844 views

Server vendor that allows 3rd party disks

As noted here, Dell is no longer allowing 3rd party disks to be used with their latest servers. As in, they don't work period. Which means that if you buy one of these boxes and want to upgrade the ...
5 votes
1 answer
5k views

Change owner of LVM LV's device node in RHEL5

First time using serverfault, please excuse any breaches of etiquette. I've created several LVM2 logical volumes in local storage on a server, and would like one of the device nodes - not the ...
0 votes
2 answers
143 views

What service to use to backup 100+ gigs of data as mounted block-level storage? [closed]

I'm looking for an online solution to mount a drive as block-level storage and perform backups on it. I'd use S3 for this, but it's not block level. I'd use rackspace for this, but again, it's not ...
2 votes
1 answer
153 views

Why would my servers be losing partition tables?

Over three consecutive days, three of our servers have lost their partition tables. Two of the machines were running linux and the third was a windows machine and all of these servers are on an ...
24 votes
13 answers
3k views

High Failure Rate of Large Drives?

I recently deployed a server with 5x 1TB drives (I won't mention their brand, but it was one of the big two). I was initially warned against getting large capacity drives, as a friend advised me that ...
2 votes
3 answers
3k views

What's the relation between "HP Diagnostics" the "Array Config Utility" and "Windows Disk Manager"

I have a failed drive that is reported in HP Diagnostics https://localhost:2381/hpdiags/frontend2/frontend.php? It tells me that Logical Drive 5 has a drive that is about to fail. The name of ...
1 vote
1 answer
158 views

Files disappeared from server, old ones shown instead

Recently I ran into a very strange phenomenon with one of the servers I manage used to serve samba shares over the local network. It was running Ubuntu Server 8.04 and I decided to upgrade the ...
10 votes
4 answers
28k views

What effects do magnets have on HDDs and SSDs? [closed]

What do magnets do to hard disk drives and solid state drives upon contact?
0 votes
1 answer
250 views

Dell Server HDD failing

I have a Dell PowerEdge 2950 which has 3 drives configured as a RAID 5 array. One of the disks is in a failing state. My question is: if I have a similar drive can I simply pull out the failing drive ...
0 votes
2 answers
872 views

How can I be alerted if a Windows Server 2003 machine's hard drive is approaching full?

I need to get an email alert when a Windows Server 2003 server's hard drive approaches a certain fill level. How can this be accomplished?
0 votes
1 answer
194 views

Hard disk read error [closed]

I have some old (8 years) hdd, Maxtor 40Gb (i think that full model number is not important here). Suddenly, i can't read some files from it. Using chkdsk, after LONG scan i realised i have some 380 ...
2 votes
1 answer
4k views

How to clone a failing Server 2008 R2 hard drive before it's too late

My server fails to boot. The drive is not found at boot. It's a Server 2008 R2 domain controller, there is no secondary domain controller. The hard drive was not in a RAID configuration. It is a ...
1 vote
12 answers
1k views

What is the best approach to wiping all data off a HDD instantly? [closed]

Just wondering in case something happens and I need to wipe all my data right away. I don't care if the drive is unusable after wipe.
0 votes
1 answer
280 views

Adding a second hard drive but how do I move virtuals on 2nd hard drive

I am using VMWare Workstation 8.x. and I have 2 virtuals running under this. Now, these are on my current c: which is 54rpm very slow hard drive. and therefore VMs are really really slow as I/O is bad ...
0 votes
1 answer
2k views

cfdisk quits with a fatal error in regards to the partition table

fresh install. 'cfdisk /dev/sda' gives the following output: "FATAL ERROR: Bad primary partition 2: Partition ends in the final partial cylinder" what could be the reason for this to happen and what ...
3 votes
2 answers
556 views

How to view a full disk data (more than one partition) cloned with dd

I've a disk image done with dd: dd if=/dev/sda of=/mnt/fulldisk.img /dev/sda have some partitions (Windows+Linux) My problem is: I need to know if the image is done well, how can I access data? (...
34 votes
14 answers
17k views

Is it safe to store data on a hard drive for a long time?

Is it safe to backup data to a hard drive and then leave it for a number of years? Assuming the file system format can still be read, is this a safe thing to do. Or is it better to continually ...
2 votes
2 answers
3k views

Can I repartition/reconfigure Debian to use extra disk space without wiping everthing?

I installed Debian inside a Virtual Machine on my mac using WMWare Fusion using the default settings (8gig harddrive space) but it's now full. I've upped the disk allowance in the VWWare settings but ...
1 vote
2 answers
912 views

Vista Backup failed: "The filename, directory name or volume label syntax is incorrect (0x8007007B)"

My computer recently attempted to run a backup and failed with the above error code. I tried creating a new backup on removable media, again this failed. I watched where the backup failed and found ...
4 votes
2 answers
14k views

Predictive failure on hot swappable drive

on a HP PROLIANT ML350 G5 server, one of 3 physical hot swappable drives in a Smart Array has a status of Predictive Failure and the amber light is flashing. Each drive is 146GB. In HP System ...
0 votes
1 answer
287 views

Mirrored HDD on Windows 2000 Server become invalid on Windows 7 [closed]

I have a situation: I had two SATA HDD, on mirror (soft mirrow by Windows), on Windows 2000 Advanced Server x86 then I remove it, throw away the server and keep the disk. Now I want some data on it,...
7 votes
1 answer
318 views

Backup process flushes disk cache

I've got a backup process which reads quite a lot of data from disk, and therefore uses up all memory for disk cache, swapping off apps and other cached data in the process. There is no benefit to ...
0 votes
2 answers
3k views

RAID 1 disk is marked as Spare after replacement

one of two disks in my RAID 1 died so I replaced it. When new disk has been added to array the sync process started and few minutes later it has become a Spare. How can I "force" the disk to be a ...
0 votes
5 answers
771 views

What are the more reliable SSDs to use in an enterprise environment? [closed]

We all know SSDs are fast... but aren't all that great when it comes to any computer that writes to disk many times in any given minute. Are there any SSDs that are suited for an enterprise ...
4 votes
2 answers
3k views

Why does a CP command on linux consume CPU?

I just run a copy command for two large directories with a small number of huge files and I see my cp process is consuming around half a core in top: 51116 root 20 0 110m 876 688 D 43.9 0....
8 votes
10 answers
22k views

Configuring SQL for optimal performance... SSD or HDD?

Does anyone know of any comparisons that show how SSDs compare to HDDs for performance in a SQL environment? I'm trying to understand what type of performance benefit might be gained by moving to SSD....
3 votes
3 answers
4k views

Large disk queue length

A few days ago disk on my server started to have large queue length: I've changed controller battary recently, HP configuration utility was saying the battery is bad, but after changing the battery ...
1 vote
4 answers
1k views

Server is giving me a SMART Failure Predicted

I have an older xSeries 306 that has started giving me a SMART Failure Predicted on Hard Disk 2: SATA Port 0 message, a warning about backing up, and a message to Press F1 to continue. It's my ...

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