Re: Testing Spare Drives in Software RAID
On Thu, Aug 23, 2007 at 03:05:56PM +0200, martin f krafft wrote:
> also sprach Douglas A. Tutty <dtutty@porchlight.ca> [2007.08.23.1449 +0200]:
> > I don't know how to test the actual functioning of a spare drive. With
> > no activity on a spare, S.M.A.R.T. may not have any data to go on.
>
> Yes, it will. Obviously, use of a drive will more likely cause
> errors, but as long as SMART does not report any, the drive is ready
> to go. Also, SMART can run low-level tests itself.
>
Does this mean that if a block hasn't been accessed in a while (months,
years) and a bit degrades so that the data on that block is wrong
(cosmic rays, age, whatever), when read ECC on the drive will detect the
error, send out correct data, rewrite the block and verify that it wrote
OK (that the bit isn't permantly dead) and if it didn't will then remap
the block?
Then do the SMART low-level tests do the same to every block without the
OS having to read every block?
If so, fantastic; makes life much simpler.
Doug.
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