This is a repost of this thread: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7itprogeneral/thread/a77c6445-e504-4394-a945-7a6c096e0871 Per Technet, being a subscriber guarantees me a response from a Microsoft Engineer within two business days, but the previous thread was not answered satisfactorily, and now Microsoft seems to be ignoring it. Since my previous thread went unresolved and this is of critical importance, I chose to repost this and get a real answer from Microsoft.
Having Software RAID as a built-in option seems like a great idea. Hard disks are notoriously unreliable, and they carry the most important part of our technological world: our data. Being able to easily build a software RAID from two cheap 1TB drives gives me so much piece of mind ... or does it?
I've noticed my software RAID seems to be periodically losing sync.* This is worrisome (maybe a drive is failing?) but not nearly as worrisome as HOW I noticed it. For some reason, after cruising along smoothly for several months with my RAID 1, I decided to check on its status in Computer Management -> Disk Management. And, oh nos! there was my software RAID with a Failed Redundancy Error. I had to "Reactivate Disk" and it started resynching. I decided to check again every so often and everything was fine again for a while until I lost synch again.
Again, my losing synch is not the point of this post. My point is why was there NO NOTIFICATION of my synchronization loss? I have NO IDEA how long my drives had lost synchronization before I stumbled upon that fact the first time. What is the point of software RAID if Windows does not inform you that it has failed? I could lose one drive, go cruising along for months thinking I'm fine, then lose the other drive and POW! I'm left with nothing due to a false sense of security (please no lectures on RAID being for reducing downtime and not for use as a backup solution - I KNOW).
I just had another loss of synchronization, and I checked around to see if I had been notified anywhere else (the Action Center seems like it could be a good candidate for this). Finding nothing, I've come here to post my concerns.
But in order to maintain my required level of uptime, I need to KNOW when a drive has failed redundancy so I can correct the situation (by replacing the drive or other). Where is the notification that I am running on only one drive?
Update: In the previous thread, it was suggested I use the Windows Task Scheduler to make my own custom notification based on RAID failure events in the Event Viewer. After investigating this unnecessarily obtuse (but usable) solution, it was found that Windows 7 does not generate any events for RAID synchronization failures. This is astounding. What I really want is graphical, e-mail, and event notification of a drive failure. I will take just an event. I find it amazing that the new "Action Center" thinks it is important enough to tell me that my Flash player has a problem, but can't let me know that a drive is failing. This seems like the perfect job for an OS notification system: to warn you when the feces is about to impact the ventilator.
*Update: the disk in question ended up dying completely and was replaced under warranty with no problems and the machine is now happily cruising along with 2 working and synchronized hard drives once again. I would have never noticed I had a failed hard drive if I didn't check on my own.