What is the correct action to take if 2 disks are faulty in RAID 5?

Save a support file from SoftRAID and attach it. And start backing up immediately

Backup works constantly every hour two time machine disks. I already ordered three new same disks yesterday for replacement.

So far the server is functioning normally, I don’t even know from what moment this phenomenon began since I don’t work permanently in this company, I saw it by chance

@sergey 

I think you reinstalled or updated MacOS, as the SoftRAID log only goes back until earlier today. So I cannot tell you when this started, either.

You have 2 likely failing drives, not three, BTW. First thing to do is "validate" your volume. Then you have the choice between replacing one disk, then the other, or starting fresh with a new volume.

volume validating is failing after 2-3 minutes, cannot validate

I ordered 3 to have another spare if it is possible to include it in raid (increase the number of disks without increasing the storage capacity)

the question is can i replace one, rebuild and replace the second and rebuild again while this whole structure is functioning

i tnink logs is cleaned so you can't see

2 disks working since 2021 failed, initially there were 3 of them in RAID 0, 1 failed at the end of 2024, then I installed 2 new ones and made RAID 5, apparently it was worth replacing everything. Apparently, SSDs do not last more than 4 years in RAID, the studio has a very fast network and a lot of workstations

is it possible for raid 5 to work with 2 spare disks?

and one more question is it possible to update the system to the latest version of sequoia? at the moment the server is running version 15.2 which definitely solved the problem with random reboots

@sergey 

If you cannot validate, then your only option is update your backup now!

Then restore your data.You are at very high risk at present, with bad drives and no redundancy.

No, RAID 5 does not work with 2 out of sync disks. We are working on RAID 6, which will allow two parity drives, but that is not the same as "warm spares", as they will be active components of the volume.

the backup is updated on two disks every hour. i can update the system to the latest version of sequoia?

@sergey 

Absolutely. It will not help your system. I would disconnect your drives before updating, however.

I understand that it won't help, the only question is whether the latest version of sequoia with softraid is stable. The update will be made in parallel with the replacement of disks

@sergey 

Absolutely!

In fact 15.3 fixes even more bugs and crashes (kernel panics), so it is a good update. There were some issues with intel computers, especially the 2019 MacPro, but those are mostly resolved now.

maybe it's a bad idea to do raid on ssd? ssds fail more suddenly than a regular hard drive, it seems to me the program can't warn that it "will fail soon"

but when everything is working properly...it works phenomenally fast, I get almost everything over the network 10G

I understand what you are saying totally.

Remember, flash is very fast AND RAID is not backup, so if you keep your RAID backed up, you have both speed (with redundancy) and backup for catastrophic issues.

SoftRAID 8 does a better job of predicting failure, we can also track media wear on NVMe.

MacOS Sequoia also fixes some write issues with SSD's.