Switched on my PC this morning and my Intel Matrix Storage Console informs me that one of my drives had failed (phew I'd forgotten I haid a RAIDed (1) machine) what do I do now? Buy a new drive and put it in?

Buy a new drive and put it in?

Yes

Is the dead one still under warranty?

Is the dead one still under warranty?

No, the PC is about 5 years old.

Do I need to buy a similar hard drive in terms of size etc, or doesn't it matter?

Do I need to buy a similar hard drive in terms of size etc, or doesn't it matter?

I guess it won't matter as long as it's at least as big but there's no point buying anything much bigger unless the price is right
I tend to stick with the same make & model if I can

Thanks uplink. The old HD is pretty much superceded now I can only get much bigger drives with more cache. How can you tell wich of the drives is the wrong'un?

It should give you the number of the drive that has failed. The array size will be determined by the size of the smallest drive, so if you replace with a bigger drive than the failed one you should be fine, but any spare space over the original drive size may well be wasted.

Yeah, don't go crazy buying some massive drive. The RAID will only be the size of the smallest drive and will probably format the big drive down.

You might be able to then buy another big drive to replace the original one that was still working and do some jiggery pokery to get a bigger RAID if you thinks it's worth it, but it could end in tears.