raid 5 hotswap question

[Nosferatu]

my boss and I are having a disagreement on the definition of "hotswap". We have a raid 5 array at work. This tech guy saw a drive was dead and yanked it out while the computer was running. To me that equates to hotswapping a drive. He says no because he did not reinsert the drive into the array until the computer was completely shut down. He said that basically it was removing a dead drive, but that doesnt qualify as hot swap.

If someone can point a link as to what exactly defines a hotswappable drive I would appreciate it. I am a new guy at work and it would be right to be right about something.

 

[mcveigh]

I'd agree with your boss. although i've never had to try and hot swap a scsi drive, I have done exactly what you described with ide raid (damn ibm 75gxp:|) I pulled the drive cause it was dead and the raid controller was no longer using it

 

[Nosferatu]

Ok. but my thinking is that the electrical impulse from the drive inserted or deleted would cause a malfunction unless the array was capable of handling the pulse. hm

 

[bozo1]

Hotswapping is the ability to yank the drive and replace it with the data being rebuilt and no need to shut down/reboot the system. What he did was remove a dead drive. SCA drives and backplanes are designed to be able to do this. Whether the new drive can be detected and/or the data rebuilt is a function of the controller.

 

[CTho9305]

i would call it a hotswap, but techincally i think your boss is right.

 

[dkozloski]

SCA drives have pins of varying length in the specialized connector that allow the pins to make connection sequentially and safely so that the drives may be removed and installed with power applied thus "hot swapped". If the array has spare drives that are connected and powered up but not actually in use they are called "hot spares". There is some confusion on these points and sometimes the terms are improperly swapped.