Osprey,
Thanks again for answering another of my T7500 questions. I did not have the User's Manual (or know about the Dell FTP site although I've been purchasing Dell computers for work for 15 years). I downloaded the manual and read much of it. I will take another look at the Storage Manager app and perhaps do some more testing. From a quick read of the manual, it appears that the following is how the Storage Manager works:
1. The Storage Manager needs to be started manually in order to work (cannot be started via the Start function as it requires a login).
2. The Storage Manager will automatically rebuild a replaced drive, but its progress cannot be monitored with the SAS6/iR controller which is what I have. It can be monitored if you have the PERC 5/i or 6/i controller.
3. The Storage Manager will indicate that a drive has failed by a red icon next to it, but does not give any kind of popup message. In addition, it wasn't clear to me if this is a startup check or a continuous check. If you have a PERC 5/i or 6/i controller, you can adjust the monitoring frequency by adjusting a setting called Patrol Read. However, even it does not appear do display a popup error message, but will just change the color of the disk icon. It does make entries into the System log.
Knowing what I know now (thanks to you), I would have ordered the T7500 with a PERC controller. It appears that I could still purchase one and move the drives over to it and inport the "foreign configuration" which would allow me to keep my RAID1 array intact.
I have also had previous experience with LSI 3Ware and MegaRAID controllers. Their monitoring apps run as a service and monitor and provide a warning if something fails.
And finally, after much reading about the value versus risks of desktop RAIDs, I am considering not using a RAID at all and just running an automatic backup each night using Paragon Hard Disk Management Pro. That will also protect against accidential file deletion.
Thanks again for your assistance.
Jim
