Low end server Dead HDD, replacement question

[DrB0b]

One of our low end servers had a HDD die this morning. It was a WD2500js as seen here:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822144417

I can probably find this drive on Tiger or Geeks.com but I would rather upgrade to a 500, 750 or 1TB. My main question is, if I toss in a larger drive, will it just rebuild the array, RAID 1 mind you, and allocate 250ish GB of the total size and work like normal?

If so, I would rather do that and then somewhere down the road, replace the other 250 with the similar 5,7, or 1TB. Could there be issues with this setup? The RAID controller is on the motherboard and is a VIA VT8237 controller if that matters. The server is still running but the RAID utility signals a broken array and only showing one disks properties.

Thanks!

Learning - A never ending quest for knowledge usually attained by being thrown in a situation and told to fix it now.

 

[58sniper]

It will allocate whatever the existing member has, IIRC.

However, I wouldn't do what you plan. IMHO, you should put drives that are identical in the array. If you do one now, and one, say, a year from now, they won't be the same. They'll be different models or different firmware.

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[DrB0b]

True, I guess my last question would be, how exact does it have to be? Since these drives are no longer being sold, could I get its newer version, also a 120 GB:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136771

Has higher cache value and is slated as a 6.0, although it should be backwards compatible to 3.0 SATA. I assume as long as they are in the same ballpark, they will not have an issue building the array.

Outside of the physical limitations as you said, is there any big issue that comes from trying to upgrade the array the way I was thinking?

Learning - A never ending quest for knowledge usually attained by being thrown in a situation and told to fix it now.

 

[58sniper]

You can do any of that. The issue you could run into is two different drives that have different performance characteristics.

But it should technically work.

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[DrB0b]

Thank you sir. That's the info I was looking for.

Learning - A never ending quest for knowledge usually attained by being thrown in a situation and told to fix it now.