Watched a tech at a client site in Reno pull a drive without powering down the array first, and it changed how I do every single job now | Computer Technicians

Miles Palmer · 2026-09-26T22:45:05.561474+00:00

I was shadowing a senior tech at a small office in Reno about 8 months ago, mostly just carrying boxes and watching. He had to swap a failed drive in a RAID 5 array, and instead of taking the server down like I would have, he just yanked it hot and slid a new one in. I almost said something but he looked at me and said the controller handles it, just watch the lights. Took about 90 seconds for the rebuild to kick off and everything stayed up the whole time. I had been doing 30 minute maintenance windows for stuff like that for two years because nobody ever showed me any different. After that day I started checking every controller's manual before I touch anything, and turns out almost all of them support hot swap if you do it right. Last month I swapped a drive during business hours at a dental office and the front desk didn't even notice. Curious if anyone else learned hot swap the hard way or if I was just the last guy to get the memo.

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Watched a tech at a client site in Reno pull a drive without powering down the array first, and it changed how I do every single job now | Computer Technicians - The Community Guide