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Difficulty: MediumStorage Drives and RAID Array Issues

A desktop technician receives a helpdesk ticket regarding a graphic design workstation that has suddenly suffered severe write latency. Upon opening the system storage utility, the technician notes that a two-drive software RAID 1 array configured for project files has entered a degraded state due to a S.M.A.R.T. attribute failure notification on drive 1. What is the most appropriate action for the technician to take to restore array fault tolerance?

  1. Replace the failing drive with a new drive of identical or larger capacity and rebuild the mirror.Answer
  2. B
    Re-initialize and reformat the degraded RAID 1 volume to mark bad sectors as unusable.
  3. C
    Force drive 1 online within the storage management console to clear the degraded status alert.
  4. D
    Convert the degraded array into a RAID 0 striped volume to bypass the failing disk sectors.

Answer

Replace the failing drive with a new drive of identical or larger capacity and rebuild the mirror.
In a RAID 1 mirrored configuration, when one drive fails or experiences a S.M.A.R.T. threshold error, the array enters a degraded state but continues to function using the remaining healthy drive. The standard operational procedure to restore fault tolerance is to remove the faulty drive, insert a replacement drive of equal or greater capacity, and rebuild the mirror.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the reported degraded disk state
Determine that drive 1 in the RAID 1 mirror has triggered S.M.A.R.T. warnings causing array degradation.
RAID 1 provides 1-to-1 data mirroring, meaning data remains intact on the surviving drive.
2
Remove the failing drive and install a compatible replacement disk
The physical hardware error is isolated and removed from the system.
S.M.A.R.T. errors indicate impending physical hardware failure that software reformatting cannot resolve.
3
Initiate an array rebuild operation to duplicate data onto the new replacement drive
The RAID 1 array returns to an Optimal/Healthy state with full fault tolerance restored.
Rebuilding synchronizes data from the healthy surviving drive to the newly added drive.

Key Concept

RAID 1 Degraded Recovery and Drive Replacement
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Topics

Storage Drives and RAID Array Issues

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