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eruskov

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Rebuilding RAID 5 disk array ?

I have a 4 x 200 GB SATA RAID 5 disk array  with only  20%  used space.  Today one disk  failed and I took it out.

Is it safe to continue running this disk system with only 3 disks? Is there enough data redundancy to allow for another disk failure? Should I rebuild the  3 disk array now? Obviously, the failed disk will be replaced, but that might take some time.

The array is part of  a Red Hat 9 Linux  data server.
 
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Lee W, MVP
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eruskov

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Thanks for the quick replies and advice!

I have a Relion Xeon 2U Servers from Penguin Computers and it came with the 4 x 200 GB SATA RAID 5 disk array that I mentioned above.

Today I bought two 200Gb Maxtor SATA drives and one of them is currently being rebuilt as part of the RAID array. There is one disk slot left and I would like to use it as an online spare. How do I do that?  

Any comments about  mixing disk sizes in a RAID arrays?


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Ok, I guess my last comments merit a separate question. I am closing this question and  splitting the points.
thanx