Raid initialize time

[Chris atkinson]

Hi all I just got a qnap ts-453a raid device and started a raid 10 array using four 8tb has drives. Is it normal for a blank raid array to take ~40 hours? I dont even have any data on it yet.

 

[thiggins]

RAID build times can be quite long for such a large volume, yes.

 

[joegreat]

Hi all I just got a qnap ts-453a raid device and started a raid 10 array using four 8tb has drives. Is it normal for a blank raid array to take ~40 hours? I dont even have any data on it yet.

It all depends on the RAID controller: How smart and fast he does the init! At least he need to read the disc to mark any faulty blocks, but to find out if they are faulty the RAID controller typically write and then read the disc - depending on the algorithm and throughput it can take long.

I recall a very un-smart soft-RAID on Windows Home Server, which ran for 4 days until it was crashed by a Windows Update and automatic reboot! A restart of the the init took then another 5 days to complete...

Being not dependent on a stupid RAID controller is one of the reason I am running now a "un-RAID-ed RAID" - a small Linux server with a bunch of Linux ext4 formatted discs secured with SnapRAID software. This allows me on exchange discs, have different size and they are read-/usable outside of the RAID!

 

[sfx2000]

Hi all I just got a qnap ts-453a raid device and started a raid 10 array using four 8tb has drives. Is it normal for a blank raid array to take ~40 hours? I dont even have any data on it yet.

It takes a while for the array to do the striping - and with your NAS and the size of the array, this is typical...