On Tue, Oct 18, 2011 at 10:11 AM, Arun Khan knura9@gmail.com wrote:
I would appreciate clarification on the following:
(a) Indicate disk failure. LED lights up and/or audio alarm? (b) The failed HDD can be swapped.
Don't rely on the LED going on. I mark all my hot swap disks with labels with their serial number. This label is visible from the outside without removing the HD. That way, I can double check that I remove the faulty disk. Pulling the wrong disk is the last thing you want to risk in a RAID setup. Relying on a fault LED is close to that. Also make a list of the HD serial numbers and their position within the RAID in time. Store that in a safe place.
Thanks for these very helpful suggestions - good admin practice.
I pulled ONCE the wrong disk out of a Raid5 array. :-( You know what that means?
You mean, it is not OK to pull out a "functioning" disk? Pulling one disk out of RAID 5 should be OK. Am I missing something?
Usually you would be swapping drives to repair an already-broken raid. Unless you have a hot spare and the raid has already rebuilt on it, pulling a working disk will take a 2nd drive out of the failed raid5 and kill it.