Creating a RAID 5 from external desktop USB 3 drives - Other Problems

RE: Creating a RAID 5 from external desktop USB 3 drives

SoftRAID Support — Mon, 06 Jan 2025 17:11:35 +0000

I/O errors may be from multiple causes. I am not confident this disk is failing. It could be cable, or other reasons.
I would watch further before replacing, although you can do it now if you want.

You need to "remove disk", then "add disk". We have a video here that can help walk you through this:
https://softraid.com/support/support-videos/

SoftRAID does support this configuration, but keep in mind that these are "cheap" drives generally, in that they usually use the less expensive SMR recording technology, which make them slow down on sustained writes. And with the multiple connections, USB, USB hub, additional cabling, etc, less reliable. Its not the "RAID", its the drives and all the connecting parts.

Creating a RAID 5 from external desktop USB 3 drives

WayneStewart — Mon, 06 Jan 2025 06:50:00 +0000

Hi,

This mistake might have been silly, but I created a RAID 5 from three external 18TB Seagate drives.

The resulting drive is 36 TB, which I have partitioned 50/50 as general storage (mainly local cloud caches, movies, and music collection) and as a Time Machine backup.

Now, one of the drives is showing i/o errors, and I've been advised to replace it, but I'm not certain how to do that!

I bought a new drive, but I'm uncertain how to nominate this new drive as part of the RAID to replace the failing unit.

I guess there are a few questions:

Was this a dumb idea in the first place? Is the software only suitable for actual raid boxes?
Should I attempt to rebuild with the new drive or abandon this approach?

Thanks for your help,

Wayne

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