I have a brand new Sandisk-branded G-RAID 2 with 2x4TB drives and configured as RAID1, connected to Windows over USB (not Thunderbolt). It is not under intense usage, powered on about 2-3 times a week on average. The past month or so I keep getting entries in Event Viewer about IO errors to this device. Thousands of them. I tried another port and another cable, it can still be used but the errors keep stacking up.
Then today, I powered it on to…nothing. White light, completely undetected in Windows. I need the stuff on it pronto and don’t have time for this sh!t, so I pulled out the #1 drive and mounted it in a dock. The drive shows up immediately, albeit completely unformatted and initialized. I initialized it in Disk Management but stopped short of formatting or creating any partitions. Popped it back in the G-RAID - red light. Pulled it out hoping for some sort of single-disk fallback mode - still red light.
First question; since the whole point of RAID1 and halving my capacity is ease of access in case of single drive failure - how can I pull my data off the #2 drive? I could resort to data recovery solutions on the #1 drive but would prefer a more straightforward solution if available.
Second question; isn’t G-RAID supposed to be like the best storage solution? It even positions itself as “Professional” what with all the Mac-related marketing. For entertainment purposes I have a made-in-China dock that’s powered on 24/7 on the HTPC entering its 5th year of service without a hiccup. And even if it does conk out I can just pull the drive and access it as easily as any other drive. I sprung for this glorified “top-of-the-line” HDD enclosure for my work - mainly if not solely for reliability - only to have it sh!t itself barely a year into service just after warranty has expired, and no apparent way to access the mirrored drive? What’s the deal here WD?
