Re: [tlug] How to proceed with RAID drive failure

[Christian Horn <chorn@example.com>]

On Thu, Jul 14, 2011 at 03:31:52PM +0200, Attila Kinali wrote:
> 
> That's actually what happens if you have a "real server [tm]"
> (like a HP DL or IBM x series). There, all disks in the server
> are managed by the RAID system. There is no way to access a disk
> directly. This means that if you partitioned and formated a disk
> outside and wanted to take the data over, you'd lose it all. But
> as you cannot access the data anyways, you would not try it at all ;-)
> 
> These systems have the big advantage that you get a red light which
> [...]

..and this also means they have the downside that you have problems
monitoring the disk healthstatus from Linux.  The vendor wants to
settle on your system with his non open code (and maybe even kernel
modules) to inform on disk problems.

For most hardware raids small, mostly open userland tools exist to do that.
Never understood why almost noone transports that information directly
via driver and informs linux on problems.

Christian