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Difficulty: MediumStorage Drives and RAID Array Issues

A server administrator receives a S.M.A.R.T. predictive failure alert for Disk 2 in a hot-swappable hardware RAID 5 array on a production database server. To maintain system uptime and ensure data integrity, place the administrative steps for replacing the failing drive in the correct chronological order from first to last.

  1. 1Perform a full system backup of the volume data.
  2. 2Use the RAID management software to locate the physical drive slot and safely take Disk 2 offline.
  3. 3Remove the failing drive from the drive bay and insert a replacement drive of equal or greater capacity.
  4. 4Initiate or verify the automatic RAID array rebuild process in the controller utility.

Answer

The correct sequence begins with backing up volume data, followed by logically taking the failing drive offline via RAID management tools, physically replacing the drive in the hot-swap bay, and finally initiating or verifying the array rebuild process.
The proper sequence prioritizes data protection before hardware operations. Creating a full backup ensures recovery options if another disk experiences read errors during rebuilding. Next, taking the drive offline via management utilities disengages controller tasks and identifies the target bay indicator. Then, swapping the physical drive provides new storage media. Finally, monitoring or starting the rebuild confirms the RAID set returns to a healthy state.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Back up critical data
Ensures data safety if a secondary disk failure occurs during array maintenance.
Array rebuilds place heavy read stress on remaining drives; securing an updated backup first mitigates potential catastrophic data loss.
2
Logically take the drive offline using RAID software
Prepares the disk for removal and highlights the disk bay LED indicator.
Prevents drive removal while active read/write commands are in-flight and avoids pulling the wrong disk.
3
Physically swap the degraded drive
Installs a functional blank drive into the active enclosure bay.
Physical replacement is required so the controller has target media to write parity and missing data blocks.
4
Verify and monitor the RAID rebuild
Restores array redundancy and optimal performance status.
Confirms the controller successfully accepted the new drive and is rebuilding data from parity blocks across the remaining healthy drives.

Key Concept

Hot-swappable RAID disk replacement workflow and predictive failure handling
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Topics

Storage Drives and RAID Array Issues

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