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Difficulty: MediumStorage Drives and RAID Array Issues

A server administrator receives an alert indicating that a hardware RAID 5 array consisting of four 2 TB SATA hard drives has entered a degraded status due to a single drive failure (Disk 3). The server must remain operational to serve active user sessions. Which of the following is the most appropriate immediate action to restore redundancy to the array?

  1. Hot-swap the failed drive (Disk 3) with a new drive of equal or greater capacity to begin the automatic rebuild process.Answer
  2. B
    Re-initialize and reformat the entire RAID 5 array configuration in the RAID management console to clear the disk error.
  3. C
    Delete the degraded storage volume inside the operating system disk manager and recreate a new RAID 5 volume.
  4. D
    Power down the host system immediately, remove all remaining functional drives, and test each drive on a separate diagnostic computer.

Answer

Hot-swap the failed drive (Disk 3) with a new drive of equal or greater capacity to begin the automatic rebuild process.
In a RAID 5 array, data and parity are striped across all drives, allowing the array to tolerate a single disk failure. Replacing the failed drive via hot-swapping maintains system availability while allowing the hardware controller to rebuild the lost data onto the replacement drive using parity blocks from the healthy drives.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the status of the RAID 5 array and confirm single-disk fault tolerance limit.
RAID 5 can tolerate a single disk failure without data loss, but the array is operating in a degraded state without fault tolerance.
Understanding array status ensures that immediate maintenance can be performed without unnecessary downtime or destructive recovery attempts.
2
Perform a hot-swap replacement of the failed physical drive while keeping the server powered on.
The failed disk is isolated and physically replaced with an identical or higher capacity drive.
Hardware RAID enclosures support hot-swapping, satisfying the requirement to maintain system uptime for active users.
3
Allow the RAID controller to initiate the automatic parity rebuild operation onto the replacement drive.
Parity information stored across the remaining healthy drives is used to recalculate and reconstruct the missing data onto the new disk.
Completing the rebuild process restores full RAID 5 redundancy.

Key Concept

RAID 5 Degraded Array Recovery and Hot-Swapping
Estimated Time:1m 30s
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Topics

Storage Drives and RAID Array Issues

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