Help with Failed Drive in RAID 5

[hubcap1324]

I am a little green when it comes to recovering from a failed disk in a RAID array. We have a Dell 2550 with 4 disk in a RAID 5 configuration. One of the disks has failed. The server is up and running still so obviously it is running on the 3 instead of the 4. My question is what do I do next? I am ok with just doing without the drive since it was a smaller 16GB SCSI drive. Can I simply shut down, pull it out, and go from there? Or is there some type of configuration that needs to happen? Thanks a lot for any help....

 

[johnv20]

Drives in 2550 are hot swapable so there's no need to shut down the server to replace it.
Just remove the failed drive , add a new one & add it to the array

 

[jkupski]

I am ok with just doing without the drive since it was a smaller 16GB SCSI drive.

You're not "ok" without that drive. Your array is running in a degraded state--performance is suffering, and there is no redundancy. If you lose a second drive, your array goes bye-bye. Get a new drive (preferably of the exact same model/manf/size) and replace the failed drive.

As johnv20 noted, your drives are hot swappable, so there is no need to shut down the server. You may, however, have to tell the system to rebuild the array.

 

[hubcap1324]

You mis-interpreted what I wrote. I know that the system is in a degraded state. This server is used for a non-critical purpose. I do not want to replace the drive. I simply wanted to know if I just take the bad drive out, what extra steps need to be made to rebuild the array? Will I lose all the data, have to reinstall 2003 server, etc etc.... With 3 drives I can still do RAID 5 you know.....

 

[smah]

The array can not simply be rebuilt, without a drive to rebuild it to. If they are large enough, you could however, use only the 3 drives that you still have to create a new array. This would involve a backup & restore

 

[smah]

[continued from previous, incomplete post.....]

or complete loss of data.

 

[jkupski]

It will be easier and cheaper to just replace the drive. As smah noted, you will have to start from scratch--delete the logical disk, create a new 3-disk container, re-install win2k3, and then restore data from backup (of course, if your backup software supports bare metal restores, you may be able to skip the "reinstall win2k3" step.)

 

[hubcap1324]

Easier to replace yes, but cheaper?? No way. I would have to buy another drive since I do not have one laying around. I appreciate all the input and have the answers I need.

 

[jkupski]

Time has a cost, too. A 10kRPM 18GB drive goes for less than fifty bucks--I can't imagine how hours of downtime (even for a "non-critical" resource) along with the man hours required to rebuild the server can be cheaper than that.