A technician is inspecting a server configured with a four-drive hardware RAID 5 array. The storage management software indicates that the array status is currently optimal, but drive 2 reports a rapidly increasing number of reallocated sectors via S.M.A.R.T. telemetry. Which TWO of the following actions should the technician take to address this issue while minimizing the risk of data loss? (Select TWO.)
- Immediately perform a full backup of the data hosted on the array volume to a secondary storage location.Answer
- Replace drive 2 with a new drive of equal or greater capacity and initiate an array rebuild.Answer
- CFormat drive 2 using operating system disk management utilities to reset its S.M.A.R.T. bad sector counters.
- DBreak the RAID 5 array configuration in BIOS and reconfigurate it as a RAID 0 array to bypass parity overhead.
Answer
The technician should immediately perform a full data backup of the array to secondary storage and replace the failing drive with a new drive of equal or greater capacity to rebuild the RAID array.
When S.M.A.R.T. telemetry warns of predictive drive failure (such as accumulating reallocated sectors), the safest best practice is to first secure a full backup of the data to mitigate rebuild-stress risks, followed by replacing the failing disk with a qualified spare to let the hardware RAID controller rebuild parity.
Step-by-Step Solution
Key Concept
S.M.A.R.T. Predictive Failure Handling in Hardware RAID Arrays