Brian

If I were to change anything on that list, I would purchase a WD Caviar BLACK 1TB drive instead of the three WD Blue ones. They are a higher-grade class and these days, 1TB is not that expensive. (About $80 each vs $50 each for the Blue HDs.) I know you are trying to keep costs down, but it's worth the extra money. Even if you purchased two black drives for the RAID1, would be a better bet. Oh the difference? Reliability. They also run faster and run cooler. I've been buying WD Caviar Black Drives for years. What ever you do, stay away from the WD Green Drives. Or any other "Eco-Friendly" Hard Drives. The difference between a working WD Green Drive and a dead one is about 2-3 weeks. How much more for a higher wattage Power Supply? Something like this one? Video Cards and RAID setups can get a little power hungry.

Oh, keep this in mind: YOUR CAMERA'S LCD IS A LYING AND CHEATING WHORE THAT WILL SELL YOU DOWN THE RIVER IF GIVEN THE CHANCE! The image that you see on the camera's LCD IS NOT THE RAW FILE itself, but the JPEG Preview associated with the Raw File. That's why your images go from #amazeballz to #blaw when you view them in ACR.

When transferring the images from your card to your computer, do you "Copy" or "Cut" and then "Paste?" Do you normally delete in camera? What Brand / Model SD Card do you use? How old are these cards?

OK, I've done some digging around. It seems Apple has reduced the functionality with the MacOS starting in El Capitan. I'm still on Mavericks, for many reasons. Disk Utility doesn't manage RAIDs any longer with the current OS and a 3rd party software program is needed for the RAID. So that explains things, this is a "Software RAID" and not a "Hardware RAID." The difference is that with a hardware RAID, the device's firmware has built-in software that manages the RAID. The benefits are if a drive fails, all you have to do is pop the failed HD out and install the new one and it takes care of things automatically. This is what I deal with on a daily basis with my customers and their professional-grade servers. The biggest downside to this is, you guessed it...cost. Hardware RAID devices with auto-recovery are not cheap. With a Software RAID, you are dependent on the Operating System and Software working correctly; so it's not bullet-proof. Things can go wrong and you could get locked out of your files and not be able to do a automatic recovery, which is exactly what you are going through. Ugh. It's not cheap. At all. I'd budget between $1000 and $1500, conversationally speaking, for this service. I recommend a company called Gillware. That's your call. If it were me, I would install the new HD, and create a new RAID5. Then download from your cloud backup. You could also give things a whirl and see if you can make an attempt recover with the new drive. Tech Support says no...and I believe them....but who knows? You might get lucky. You are already going to more than likely blow the existing RAID away and setup a new one, so while it's already broke, no-harm-no-foul. Most definitely. When a HD is recovered, crazy filenames are part of the fun. Though it really depends on who or what is doing the recovering. A professional company like Gillware may make things easier, though at a high cost. Even then there aren't any guarantees, which leads us to "How much is it worth it to you? How much do you really want to spend?" There should be some sort of documentation, I think I linked you to the .pdf file from the company above. Honestly, it's fairly logical. For example, in the screen-shot above is the RAID software. If you wanted to blow away the RAID, you select the Radio Button that has DELETE ALL RAID next to it and click Apply. After that's done, I'm sure there is something that will pop up asking what RAID you'd like to create. Replace the failed HD and look for something that says, "Create RAID" and select RAID5 and click Apply. This is a pure guess on my part, though it's pretty much what I deal with when I create / delete RAIDs on my Servers that I maintain. It's not rocket-science, all you have to do is pay attention and have some confidence in yourself. It's already broke, you can't make it more broke unless you do something stupid, like push the enclosure off the desk while it's running. Then it will REALLY be broke. LOL!! Think logically. Input --> Output. Delete RAID --> Replace Failed HD --> Create RAID --> Follow the Wizard Prompts. It should take you more than 15 minutes total, and that's figuring time to mount the new HD in the enclosure thing/tray. Please note!!! Your enclosure may not support hot-swapping. To be on the safe side, after you delete the existing RAID, power down the enclosure, THEN replace the failed HD with it off. Otherwise you could blow things up, like the enclosure's back-plane, the power supply or the existing hds. That would not be good.

That's the whole point of a RAID, especially a RAID5. I think I told you above to install a new drive. The other two should rebuild the replacement. The only part that I'm not sure of is that you manually have to trigger it or if the RAID Software will do it automatically. Macs are funny when it comes to RAID Drives. The OS is Unix-based, which dates from the 1970's AND you are running the standard OS, not the Mac OS Server edition. It just has a fancy GUI that makes things easier. If this was a Windows box, I'm 99% positive you would have gotten a warning message about the failed drive and still would be able to access your files. I'm gonna give it straight: I feel that you are just driving yourself nuts. Replace the damn drive and be happy. (Same model number, same or slightly larger capacity.) You really do not want me to go on and on about blocks and parity and striping and all the other stuff on WHY a RAID will rebuild the replacement drive. Your eyes will glaze over and I'm stopping myself before I start geeking out.

Oh, one thing about Webroot, it can get a little hyper. It sometimes has the mentality of "EVERYTHING IS A VIRUS!!! TROJANS ARE ALL THE THINGS!!!! DENY-DENY-DENY!!!!" LOL. Man, does it do its job very well. Sometimes a little too much and you have to tell it to play nice with your software programs that are legit. For example, I have a client that has a simple Terminal Program to access their Unix server. I double clicked on the installer and "Poof" Webroot shot it down. It was like a sharpshooter yelling "PULL!!" and shooting a Clay Target out of the sky. Only after temporarily disabling Webroot will it install. LOL!!

A RAID system is the way to go, if you are backing up critical data. That being said, what you end up fighting with is the stupid software that these manufactures give you that control the RAID and it's not fool-proof. I'm not just talking about the software interface that you get things setup with; I am also talking about the software built into the external enclosure itself. It's a proprietary type of software and each manufacturer is different, especially when it comes to the "consumer level" stuff. So what you are dealing with is crappy programming and "We don't know what went wrong...too-bad-so-sad." Unfortunately, getting a decent commercial-grade RAID unit is not cheap. Personally, I like the RAID Controllers that come with HP Servers. They are Compaq controllers and are the best in the industry, as far as I'm concerned, but they aren't a consumer-type of device. I like G-Drives. They are expensive though, but it's what I own and they come Mac-Formatted. Here is a 8TB Model with both Thunderbolt and USB 3.0 Ports. By default, a Mac OS will READ a Windows Drive, but not write to it. So if you are recovering images and files on a Windows machine, it's better to have that EHD formatted as a Windows Drive to restore your files to, THEN hook it up to your iMac. You don't have to get fancy, a simple 2-3TB HD should work. Keep in mind that you want to keep individual file sizes less than 4GB each. After you get things restored to your Mac, then you can format the EHD for use with the Mac. Make sense? This HD caught my eye: WD My Book Pro 12TB. I like that it comes with two Western Digital Caviar Black 7200 RPM Hard Drives. (That's the internal HD line that I purchase with my own money.) I would set it up as a RAID1 which is two 6TB Hard Drives that are mirrored. You have that backwards, the WD RAID is hooked up to your iMac. Use an 8TB EHD to copy the data off the WD 6TB weekly and store that 8TB off site. Heck having two 8TB EHDs and a Week A / Week B Rotation is even better. Now I realize this isn't cheap. I get it...but keep in mind, compared to legal fees, hard drives are cheap. If you are doing anything professionally photography-wise, and I don't care how iron-clad your contract disclaimer is, legal fees / court fees add up quickly if something gets lost and you get sued. Attorney fees of $250+ /hr, paperwork charges, phone-call charges adds up. Just think of it as and insurance policy with no deductible.

Free? If you are running Windows 10, believe it or not...Windows Defender. You download it and the updates via Windows Update as it's part of Windows. For older versions of Windows, I think it was a part of Microsoft Security Essentials. Paid? I'm recommending Webroot these days.

OK. First do you know what your IP range is? It should be one of the following: 192.168.0.xxx or 192.168.1.xxx 10.1.10.xxx or 10.0.0.xxx The Subnet Mask should be 255.255.255.0. To find this out, head to your start menu and type CMD and press enter. The C:\ Prompt will appear. Type IPCONFIG and press enter. Your IP Address, Subnet Mask and Gateway should be listed. We are really looking for the Gateway Address. Let me know.

Ok, before I begin, just to make sure, the black canister looking D-Link AC 1200 is what you purchased? Correct?

It can be setup as a Router, Range Extender or WAP. I set mine up as a Wireless Access Point - WAP. You then simply connnect the Ethernet cable from one of the switch ports on the back of the D-Link and the other end to your existing switch / router. NOT the port that would go to a modem. Then you configure it in a web browser. Cat 6 is the Ethernet Cable. I ran cables through my walls between my basement and Living Room, where the D-Link is. When I get home I will take photos to show you what I'm talking about.

There are two things that are extremely dangerous when it comes to computers: 14 Year Old Sons Brother-in-Laws I had one customer way back when telling me a very long story about her computer troubles. I looked at her square in the eye and asked, "Did your Brother-in-Law try to "fix" your computer and now it's worse than ever before?" Her mouth dropped. She said, "HOW DID YOU KNOW?!?!!!" Just a hunch.

Yeah, these software packages are not fool proof. Also, having a single file of 24GB is not a good thing. With FAT32, the maximum single file size is slightly less than 4GB. So you might want to create a bunch of chunks from that 24GB file before attempting a transfer, like creating 12 2GB chunks. Oh, be sure to "copy & paste" and NOT "cut & paste." If you "cut" or move the file, if something goes wrong during the transfer, files can go "Poof." I've been bitten once by this; of course the files were irreplaceable and not backed up. I learned the hard way that day.

Take a look at the document on this Noontech page: The steps to automatically recover data in RAID 5. WD RED Drives are meant to be in NAS devices and run 24/7. I personally like the Western Digital Caviar Black Line of hard drives as they are faster, but are a tad bit louder than their RED counterparts. I also think they run a little hotter due to them being faster, but it's not an earth-shattering thing. (7200RPM vs 5400RPM.) Yes, WD RED Drives seem to have high failure rates, but I'm used to things like this. Hard Drives, Tape Drives and Power Supplies are the top three things to fail in servers. If it were me, I'd probably turn on and turn off my NAS and would use Caviar Black Drives. I'm sure your next question will be, "Can I use the WD Black Drive with my existing Red Drives?" Short Answer: No. Long Answer: You need to have three identical hard drives, IMHO, with a RAID5. Adding a faster hard drive with different firmware and possibly different capacity will cause you headaches. Even though you would purchase a 4TB or whatever, the actual capacity could be different. For example, HD 0 and HD1 are 4096.97GB. The new HD, which will be HD2 is 4096.96GB. They are both considered and marketed to be "4TB," but one is slightly smaller; one ends in .7 and the other ends in .6. That .1 difference will cause the RAID to reject that drive and state that it's "Too Small." Yes, I have had this happen to me, multiple times these last 24+ years being a tech. LOL! Bottom Line: Hard Drives fail all the time. In fact, I'm replacing one today on a server. So you have two options, replace that failed WD RED drive, or purchase three new Caviar Black HDs and restore from your cloud backup. If it were me, I'd get another RED drive and rebuild it. Time is money.

I'm feeling generous. How about test driving this program for me? http://www.mediafour.com/software/macdrive/ See if it will do what it says it will do. It states you can plug in a Mac EHD into a Windows Computer and be able to read / copy the files. The reason I ask is I'm probably going to go back to Windows 10 for my next computer. I don't want or need a 5000K Retina Screen. 1920 x 1080 works just fine.

By default, a Mac will read Windows files, but not write to a Windows HD. There are ways around this, but you could create a 32GB FAT32 Partition in Windows and call it "Transfer" on that EHD. FAT32 plays nicely with both Macs and Windows. Yes, there are other ways to do things, but I don't recommend them. (i.e. exFAT partition.) There are also programs for the Mac that will enable you to read and write to a Windows HD and there is a command that you can run in the Mac OS Shell to turn on write function to NTFS. You could network the two as well, but then there is that whole Mac HFS+ (Mac OS Extended - Journaled) vs. Windows NTFS and now Apple has a new partition file system that you'll have to contend with. I'm not going to get into that. Too much liability. The "Safest" route is the 32GB FAT32 Partition. Or use a Thumb Drive. LOL!!

Glary or CCleaner is what you are looking for. Both programs are excellent. As for which one? Canon or Nikon? Toyota or Honda? Ford or Chevy? Etc. etc. It all boils down to how you like the interface.

I've used a program called CCleaner for years. It works well and I even use the "Free" version. Here is the link: https://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/download?pc

Relax. This type of thing happens ALL the time. There is a logical process that must be followed. If you follow that process, step by step, things will turn out ok. It's when you are freaking out do things go wrong. From what I can tell, this is a Noontec TerraMaster Device? What is the exact model number?

Depends on the software. Typically, yes. That said, you might have to initiate the process and It's not as bad as it sounds. Kinda like right-clicking on something and selecting, "Rebuild RAID." I'd start reading your instruction manual to get an overview of the process while you are waiting for the drive to arrive. As I mentioned above, I have NO EXPERIENCE with this particular or brand of external RAID HD. I would be reading the manual myself. I have rebuilt RAIDs on fancy and expensive servers though, and it's not THAT big of a deal. The trick is pulling the correct failed HD and getting the exact same model/size of HD. Or one that is larger. With a RAID, you can get a larger HD, not smaller. Now before you start thinking you'll get more space, you won't. LOL! The RAID will just add the larger HD and rebuild it with the same size partitions. So even though you might replace it with a 6TB HD, it will only format it to a 4TB HD, just like the other two drives.

If you were setup as a RAID1, you would have a little less than 4096GB total capacity, so it was configured as a RAID5. (Which is what I would have done.) Because it's grayed out, the macOS won't see the drive. You are still going to have to replace that failed hard disk drive. That's the 1st step and there isn't more I can do for you until that happens.

So it looks like you were setup in a RAID5? You should be able to get to your files. A RAID5 can have one HD go bad and still have files accessible. Yes, you will need to replace the failed Hard Drive and it will rebuild the new drive for you. Depending on the device, this might be done automatically or you might have to start the process in this software control application. What happens when you go into Disk Utility? Does the Drive show up there? Have you powered off the device and pulled the failed HD? Looks like it's the third HD that has failed. Drive #1 is "M0," Drive #2 is "M1" and Drive #3 would be "M2." Can you take a photo of the EHD unit? I want to see what it looks like. Error lights and all. What ever you do, DO NOT CLICK "DELETE ALL RAID." RAID 0 = Disk Spanning. Multiple Drives are treated as one big HD. Benefit: Speed. RAID 0 is fast, but only with traditional hard drives that have spinning platters. SSD drives in a RAID 0 configuration have no performance gain. Downside: When one HD fails in a RAID 0, ALL files are lost. The whole friggin' thing is gone. RAID 1 = Drive Mirroring. One HD is copied over to a 2nd HD in real-time. Benefit: When one HD fails, you have a duplicate. So when you replace the failed drive, the new drive will be rebuilt from the duplicated drive. Downside: If Data is corrupted on one HD, that corruption is copied over automatically to the second hard drive. RAID 5 = Block Level Striping with distributed parity. "Huh?" A RAID 5 is RAID 0 and RAID 1 combined, conversationally speaking. Greater Storage Capacity vs RAID 1 and you can have one failed HD out of three (or more) disks and still function, so it's not like RAID 0 where everything goes ka-plooey when a drive fails. RAID 5 is what you want if you have that option. The downside is that it costs more because you need at least three identical drives to create a RAID5. ------------------ The next step is replacing that Hard Drive that has failed. Hopefully it's still available and yes, you want the same drive / model number.

Oh boy. If the external drive was setup as a RAID0, which takes at least two hard drives & makes them act as one big HD, and one of those drives goes bad... ...you are screwed. The whole RAID setup is gone. At this point you are looking at extreme data recovery. I recommend this guys: https://www.gillware.com/ I would budget around $1000 - $1500 to start. Thank Goodness that you have Crashplan. A 5-7% loss is a lot better than a total data loss. I've never heard of a Terra RAID external, so I would be reading the manual just like you. I can tell you that you'll know you are in a RAID1 configuration because you will lose 1/2 of your total capacity. The reason is due to RAID1 and how manufacturers market things two 2TB drives as a RAID0, that's around 4TB total capacity if setup as a RAID1, that's a little less of 2TB of capacity, after formatting. I'd say about 1.8TB or so. So while a manufacturer will market that this is a 12TB external RAID drive, that is in a RAID0 configuration. When it's configured in a RAID1, drive mirroring, that's one 6TB HD being instantly duplicated to another 6TB Drive.

Here is a tip with you new computer: Be careful what you store on the C: Drive. You won't be able to store much, maybe just Windows and PSE and a few other odd & ends. The bulk of your software / data files should be put on the 1TB D: drive. So you can't use the easy / default way to install stuff. You will have to click "Custom" during installs and make sure things go on the 1TB D: drive. No more next-next-next-next...ok...agree..nextnextnext...finish for you. You WILL have to be ANAL on what is installed on the C: Drive. Yes, I know SSD is fast, but you'd be surprised on just how quickly 256GB gets eaten up by stuff. Have fun with your new toy.

Discs are sooo early 2000's. LOL!! Everything is streaming or downloading files. Hopefully you have decent internet. Here is the downloads page for PSE: https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop-elements/kb/photoshop-elements-downloads.html As for a Card Reader, I usually recommend this one. Just make sure you use a "Blue" USB 3.0 Port to get the best performance.