How to rebuild a raid 5 array following disk failure

swyatt241

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Feb 16, 2011
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Hello,
I have a Penguin Server with 6 1TB Seagate drives in a RAID 5 configuration. One of the drives failed during a power outage. What are the criteria for replacing the failed drive (size, manufacturer, etc)?
 
With most RAID systems you can replace a failed drive with ANY drive of the same type (replace a SATA drive with another SATA drive, for example) as long as it has at LEAST as much capacity as the original failed drive. If the replacement drive is larger then the extra space simply won't be used.
 

gtvr

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Jun 13, 2009
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This is a cost/space thing, but for most of the servers I ever built a RAID 5 with, I would put an extra drive in as a hot spare. That way, if you have a degraded array you don't have to wait to find/order/ship a drive before you start the rebuild.
 

FireWire2

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If you have a decent raid engine, all you have to do it insert a NEW drive - prefer a same model, same firmware...but bigger and same type still work

If the rebuilt function auto is enable - Insert the HDD while raid is running, it should rebuilt.

Some raid controllers need to set the NEW HDD as hot spare before it can rebuilt.

So look at the raid GUI, after insert the HDD you should be able to figure it out

As long as you did not initialize/delete an array, you should be safe to explore the RAID manager to rebuilt the raid