Re: Testing Spare Drives in Software RAID

also sprach Hal Vaughan <hal@thresholddigital.com> [2007.08.23.0505 +0200]:
> That helps with knowing that alerts are working, but I'd like to be able
> to test the spare drive in an array. Is there any way to test a spare
> device in a RAID to make sure it's in good shape and not likely to fail
> once it's needed?

If it's an ATA drive, you can use smartmontools to run regular tests in the hardware and monitor the drives for signs of early failure.

You can also use the script /usr/share/mdadm/checkarray to verify the integrity of the RAID.

Btw: patches to the documentation and frequently asked questions in /usr/share/doc/mdadm are always welcome, in case you find any of my responses on the list helpful. :)

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