Raid 5 Array One drive off?

routingbyrumor

Hi! is anyone here familiar with RAID-5 we currently have a RHEL4 box at work and there are 5 drives in a RAID-5 array. The server is a Proliant DL380 G4 with 5 Drives in the bays. Today I had to power down and replace a memory DIMM but did not notice if all the drives were up a running before I shutdown. So after replacing the DIMM I powered the system up and it came up as usual however I noticed that there are only 4 drives active out of the 5 is this normal for a RAID-5 array. I have read about some type of online spare backup but does it only kick in when a failure occurs. The system works fine I just want to know if all 5 drives should be powered up and kicking because only 4 are running and the other looks like its off with no lights indicators whatsoever.

Thanks

Silver Bullet

Boot to your Smart Start Disk and run the Array Diagnostics Utility.

routingbyrumor

Silver Bullet, booting off a CD is not an option right now it is a production database server, I did not build this box and am not too familiar with how RAID-5 works and if the drive that is off kicks in when a failure occurs, I'll give HP a call on Monday, I was hoping for an answer before then but thanks anyways.