Re: howto know if raid is really working?

[Joao Clemente <jpcl@rnl.ist.utl.pt>]

Alvin Oga wrote:
> if you have to touch the keyboard to make it work,
> than its NOT working
> 	only "cat /proc/mdstat" is allowed
> 	any other raid commands says the raid is not working
>
> c ya
> alvin

Hi Alvin. I'm just wondering this: Is this true for software RAID 
aswell? My doubt is about sofware raid vs disk partitions..

Image you're using software raid and 1 disk fails. You somehow get 
alerted and , AFAIK, you
1 - shutdown the machine (ok, this if you don't have a hot-swap system)
2 - remove the failed disk
3 - insert a new, "fresh-from-the-store" disk
4 - power-up

Now, if this was a hardware raid solution, yes I believe the array will 
self-contruct again. My question is if, with these steps you'll have a 
software RAID system resync'ing the array... or you need to do extra 
steps like:
5 - partition the disk with same partition layout as the removed one

and only after this step the array can re-construct .. What's your 
experience on this?

Thanks
Joao Clemente