[Ralf Gesellen'setter] > Is it a problem to get a message if a hardware Raid controller > detects a disk failure?
Yes, it is normally a problem to detect disk failures when using a hw raid controller. If you are lucky with your choice of raid controllers, you will find a text file in /proc/ showing the current status (like /proc/rd/status with DAC960), and the source for a set of tools to manipulate the status of the raid (adding/removing disk etc). If you are unlucky, and this is the norm for most raid controllers, you will not find a way to check the current status, nor have any tools available to manipulate the raid status. It would be interesting to gather a list of raid systems, and how they compare to each other when it comes to detecting status, reporting problems and manipulating the status from the command line and a GUI application. We once tried to contact the vendor of a raid system to get them to release their tools in a form where we could include them in debian. This took so long that when the vendor finally had published the license of their source, it was impossible to buy the raid controller anywhere. Based on this experience we in the skolelinux project decided to not recommend using any hw raid where the status info isn't easily available and the tools haven't got a license making them compatible with debian main.
