Les Mikesell spake the following on 4/1/2007 11:37 AM: > Jeff Lasman wrote: > >>> if the hardware can hotswap then you should be ok if i am reading >>> what les said correctly. >> >> From time to time (not now) I have a machine on my testbed I can test >> this on. >> >> Should I break the software RAID first? I'd think so. > > No, you'd expect a failure to automatically kick the drive out of the > raid and go on about its business. > >> Do I have to remake the RAID automatically? I'd think so. > > Yes, you have to 'mdadm --add ...' to make the replacement sync back up. > >> Can I physically damage either drive? >> >> I'd think not. >> >> So I'm not sure I understand the problem as long as the (sata) drive >> is in a hotswap bay. >> >> Anything I'm missing? > > The question is whether the kernel will notice the new drive when you > add it. It might be possible to swap in an exact match and get away > with the setup detected at boot time but that doesn't sound very > healthy. Can you hotswap a new SATA drive that wasn't present at boot > time and have the kernel notice the new drive device and its partitions. > If the partitions are recognized, mdadm will be able to add them. > I think you would need a hot-swap capable controller also in addition to the hot swap drive cage. Some controllers can be made to re-scan the bus, some can't. But a card that is designed to support hot swap will have this feature. -- MailScanner is like deodorant... You hope everybody uses it, and you notice quickly if they don't!!!!