[plug] re: RAID5 & Hot Spares

[Craig Ringer]

Jon Miller wrote:
> Good point, I plan to have IBM supply me with their diagnostic utility to test the drives.  I did get an extra drive to run a test on.  The existing RAID consists of 4 x 73.2GB Hot Swap drives.  And the warranty is good for 4 yrs on parts, so if there is a problem within that time frame, IBM will handle the support of the drives/server in a 4 hour turn around.  So we'll see how they go.  There is however a Ultrium 100/200GB Backup unit to do the backup in conjunction with data replication to another server for the data.

Lucky bastard. I'm having to handle backup of 4x the storage (and more 
to come soon) with a DDS-4 drive :-(

As for testing ... I wonder if the warranty will cover deliberate 
destruction? It's amusing how many warranties on /seriously/ high end 
stuff do - though it's always best to ask nicely first.

I guess some companies expect their customers to want to test their gear 
/really/ hard.

Craig Ringer