During a routine maintenance check, a technician notes that a storage server utilizing a hardware RAID 5 array of four SATA drives is reporting a degraded status because one disk has suffered a hardware failure. The array remains online, and users can still access files. Which of the following is the single best action the technician should take to restore full redundancy?
- Replace the failed drive with a healthy drive of equivalent or larger capacity to begin the array rebuild.Answer
- BFormat the entire RAID volume and restore all files from the most recent system backup.
- CDelete the degraded array configuration and reconfigure the remaining three operational drives as a RAID 0 array.
- DForce the failed drive back online using the RAID controller management software without replacing it.
Answer
Replace the failed drive with a healthy drive of equivalent or larger capacity to begin the array rebuild.
In a RAID 5 array, data and parity are striped across all member drives. When a single disk fails, the array enters a degraded state but continues to function by calculating missing data on-the-fly using the remaining disks' parity blocks. Installing a replacement drive of equal or greater capacity allows the hardware controller to rebuild the lost data onto the new disk, fully restoring fault tolerance.
Step-by-Step Solution
Key Concept
RAID 5 Degraded Array Recovery and Redundancy Restoration