<html>
<head>
<meta content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"
http-equiv="Content-Type">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 7/23/14, 11:10 AM, Ian Evans wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote
cite="mid:CABiY0=jZLLhCxTRej0hUnYfURXGV8yFp+0LOydZMx6Q26Z-M1g@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">
<div class="gmail_extra">
<div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Jul 23, 2014 at 10:50 AM, Dan
Wilga wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div class="">On 7/23/14, 10:20 AM, Ian Evans wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
I've never looked at raid before. Here's one question:
How long do you have to replace a dead drive? My drive
appears to have died a few days into a two week
vacation. IF the rest of the drives were still
healthy, would you be able to toss a new drive in at
that point and still be okay?<br>
</blockquote>
</div>
As long as only one drive dies in a RAID 5, you can take
as long as you want. But if a second drive happens to die
in the meantime, you're sunk. If you go to RAID 6, you're
only out of luck if three drives die at once.<br>
<br>
After spending way too much time a few years ago
recovering data from a failed drive, I've since gone to
RAID 5 and now 6. Is it overkill? Perhaps. But this way I
can have a drive fail, send the bad unit back for RMA and
get the replacement--all while still having a one-drive
safety net.<br>
<br>
Two other things I've found very helpful are smartmontools
and raid-check. Between them, they help to point out a
drive that is likely to fail before it becomes critical.
<div class="HOEnZb">
<div class="h5"><br>
<br>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Are you using software raid or a raid controller? <br>
</div>
</div>
<br>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
Software RAID, specifically mdadm. I would much rather use something
that could be slower than dedicated hardware, but is not
proprietary. I've heard about nightmares from folks who had to
change from one hardware-based RAID to another.<br>
</body>
</html>