Raid 5 Degraded, Not Mounting or Rebuilding

When did this happen? was it upgrading MacOS?

this is an ExFat volume. ExFat is not really suitable for an editing volume, they are for storage and file transfer only, as the directory has no journaling or redundancy, so they get corrupted quite easily.

Disk Drill (cleverfiles.com), or R-Studio are the two best apps to recover the data. There are no "repair" apps for ExFat that I am aware of.

@softraid-support This happened after I installed SoftRaid on my other Windows 11 PC and connect this volume there. The volume did mount successfully on the Windows PC and I was able to copy some data onto it. But, when I connect it back to my Mac, this issue occurred.

So, what's the best solution for me now? Are you suggesting using "Disk Drill" or "R-Studio" to recover data? But how? It won't even mount on my Mac any more.

@softraid-support Also, since only the 1st drive in the array has "out-of-sync" issue, can I re-initialize this single drive and then make it re-join the Raid as a new drive? I believe Raid 5 is supposed to tolerate such a single disk failure, isn't it?

If this is possible, how can I perform such a procedure in SoftRaid?

@siming-weng 

Does it still mount on Windows?

No you cannot replace a disk to fix a directory problem. nothing changes in the "data", that is how RAID works, its underneath the files.

@softraid-support Yes, I just tried connecting it to my other Windows PC, it actually mounted successfully and I can access all my files just fine. But SoftRaid is showing the volume is out of sync, and there's a "rebuild" button I can click. However, once I started the rebuilding operation, the estimated time to rebuild is ridiculously long, right now, it's showing more than 7000 days. Is there anyway I can rebuild it quickly on Windows?

@siming-weng 

I do not know if/how Windows reports a damaged directory, but that is probably what is happening. One thing you can do is change the volume optimization to workstation. That will go faster, if it is able to rebuild

If this is an HFS volume, get Disk Warrior to rebuild the directory. Else you need to backup and restore. there are no MacOS tools to repair a volume directory. Same on Windows.

@softraid-support My volume is unfortunately extFAT, so I guess I don't have the option of using "Disk Warrior" to rebuild, do I?

Posted by: @softraid-support

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@siming-weng 

I do not know if/how Windows reports a damaged directory, but that is probably what is happening. One thing you can do is change the volume optimization to workstation. That will go faster, if it is able to rebuild

If this is an HFS volume, get Disk Warrior to rebuild the directory. Else you need to backup and restore. there are no MacOS tools to repair a volume directory. Same on Windows.

I can't find any option in SoftRaid to switch volume optimization to "Workstation". Is this a Mac-only thing? or can I change it on Windows version of SoftRaid?

@siming-weng 

No, you cannot use Disk Warrior on anything but HFS. for ExFAT, you would need to use R-Studio (best on Windows), if you go back to the Mac, "Disk Drill" is also good. (I think you indicated the volume does mount on Windows, however)

Here is something we wrote about ExFat. It is not recommended for a "working" file system. Its too "fragile".

https://eshop.macsales.com/blog/80813-picking-the-right-drive-format/

Yes you can set volume optimization in Windows. It is initially set when creating a volume. A "digital" optimization will only rebuild when you are not using the computer, so will go slowly. You can change this any time, workstation will always use at least 50% of disk bandwidth an 100% when you are not using the computer.

@softraid-support Ok, since my volume is still able to mount on Windows, I'll try letting SoftRaid rebuild with optimization set to "Workstation" on my Windows PC. Let's see whether it can get it done within a reasonable period of time.

If this rebuilding can be done successfully, do you think my volume will become mountable again on my Mac?

@siming-weng 

Rebuilding fixes any "parity" issues. It does not affect "data" for the user. So the answer is no, it is very unliklely it will mount on the Mac after the rebuild.

@softraid-support But, does my volume actually have any "data" issue that caused it not mountable on Mac? I only saw one drive was labelled as "out-of-sync" on SoftRaid UI, on BOTH Mac and Windows. The only difference is that on Mac, it won't mount, while on Windows, it actually mounts and I can access the all the data, and Windows SoftRaid allows me to "rebuild", but Mac SoftRaid doesn't since the volume is not mounted.

If, as you guessed, it's unlikely I have any chance to make the volume ever work again with my Mac, my only solution is to backup all the data on the volume on my Windows PC, then erase the volume and rebuild the Raid from scratch?

@siming-weng 

I believe the directory is slightly damaged, but Windows can mount it, but the MacOS cannot.

SoftRAID cannot rebuild volumes that are not mounted. that is why.