Ubuntu Raid 5 Testing

[Rusting In Peace]

Does anyone have any suggestions on good techniques for emulating Raid 5 failures?

My configuration will be software raid under Ubuntu Desktop 10.10. It'll be configured to send email alerts and perhaps shutdown the machine.

 

[Ijack]

The best way to emulate a RAID 5 failure is to pull a disk. Good way of checking that your RAID setup is working too. But best done on a non-critical system.

 

[Rusting In Peace]

Yeah non critical; just a personal raid 5 array.

I suppose there are multiple ways to pull a disk:

1) When the system is off.
2) When the system is on but idle.
3) When the system is on and writing to the array.

Assuming I just pull data wires, rather than power cables, these are all realistic data scenarios right? I don't really fancy pulling power cables in a simulation. I know modern drives are good at parking the data heads but I don't want to damage the drives!

 

[Ijack]

TBH, I don't know how safe it is to pull data cables on a running system. I've done it on "proper" servers, but that was with hot-swappable drives. I'd do it when powered down - in sleep mode if possible as that's almost a running system.

 

[Rusting In Peace]

Best answer selected by Rusting In Peace.