I'm not sure what it is doing but it is taking a LOOONG time. It is moving and not locked up, just moving slow. I am thinking that maybe there is some synching going on at the same time?

This is my first venture in to RAIDs so I wasn't sure what the standard amount of time was.

Duncan

I've only done raid 0 - but I've done a few and it only takes a few minutes, maybe 15 tops, to build the array. I'm assuming raid 5 should take around the same time - maybe a bit longer but 24 hours seems WAY to long.

I would cancel out of the build and then test each drive with a little drive check utility - they usually come with the drive or can be downloded from the drive manufacturors site. You may have a bad one and it's gumming up the works.

Just my quick 02.

In reading an article on the 1TB Lacie Bigger disk it took 15 hours to format a 1TB RAID 0 device so maybe this isn't so unusual as there is more going on with a RAID 5. I am currently at 50% at 13 hours.

If someone has any other info, I would appreciate it as I don't want to lose another full day of project time if this is abnormal.

BTW - it only took maybe 2 minutes to build the RAID but once built it still needs formatted via Windows Drive Utility to become visible to the OS.

Thanks,
Duncan

I just read an article that indicated it took 23 hours to initialize an XServe RAID 5 of the same size so maybe it is not abnormal. Wow, wish I would have known this earlier.

Does anyone have any format times on 1TB RAID 0, 1, 1+0 and 0+1? Would be a good thing to put in the back of ones head for project management.

Duncan

Yikes - Have never done a raid 5 so can't offer any first hand experience but that sounds like a very long time. I guess if other people are having that experience and it's working for em' it's worth letting it grind out and see what happens.

An update:

The parity (RAID 5) format is done after approximately 29 hours of formatting. Windows XP reports it as a healthy drive as does the hardware RAID controller.

So anyone building a RAID 5 better budget two full days.

Duncan

Larger drives take more time to format, and I am not sure if RAID changes that time by much.
You could have saved yourself all that time, and spent less than 5 minues doing the Quick Format, although your whole drives' surface wouldn't be checked for errors. It is very rare that they would have any errors, but when it happens, you may lose some data, as well as an unknown amount of time.
It should be worth it to wait a few hours for the formatting to be done with error checking.