Replacing Failing Drive Leaving It Online

[SwisherSweet]

Hi,

I have a drive with bad secotors, which still works but I want to replace it with a new drive.

I read the manual. It seems I could follow the same steps as replacing a smaller drive with a larger drive. This is my first time replacing a drive, so I want to confirm I am doing it right.

I have a spare eSata case that I can put the new drive in. It seems the steps are simply:

1. Install new drive
2. Click on the failing drive, then Replace.
3. Choose the new drive to replace the old drive.

After this, the resilvering process should start. After it completes, I can remove the old drive, and move the new drive into the server from the eSata case.

Do I have these steps right?

Are there any gotchas or nuances that I might be missing?

For example, do I need to import the new, fresh drive to use it or will it just show up?

Will this proceedure ensure I always have redundancy while resilvering (RAIDZ)?

Thank you.

 

[m0nkey_]

If you have a SATA port on your motherboard, that would be preferable. However, if eSATA is all you got then yes, you can do it this way.

As it's a RAIDZ and not a RAIDZ2, you run the risk that if another drive fails while the re-silver is running, you lose the pool. Make sure you have a good backup before proceeding.

 

[danb35]

As it's a RAIDZ and not a RAIDZ2, you run the risk that if another drive fails while the re-silver is running, you lose the pool.

No, he doesn't run that risk, as he isn't taking anything offline--at least until the resilver completes, and at that time I presume he's powering down the system, removing the failing drive, installing the replacement, and booting up. So, there's no loss of redundancy at any point throughout this process. And yes, that's a perfectly viable plan (though I agree with you that an internal SATA port is probably a better idea).

 

[SwisherSweet]

Thank you both. As it turns out, I configured this pool as RAIDZ2. Still, I'll follow the online procedure as it seems to be safer than bringing the failing disk offline.