When you replace components in a RAID-1 volume or a RAID-5 volume, follow these guidelines:
Always replace components in the “Maintenance” state first, followed by those components in the “Last Erred” state.
After a component is replaced and resynchronized, use the metastat command to verify the state of the volume. Then, validate the data. Replacing or enabling a component in the “Last Erred” state usually means that some data has been lost. Be sure to validate the data on the volume after you repair it. For a UFS, run the fsck command to validate the “metadata” (the structure of the file system). Then, check the actual user data. (Practically, users will have to examine their files.) A database or other application must have its own way of validating its internal data structure.
Always check for state database replicas and hot spares when you replace components. Any state database replica in an erred state should be deleted before you replace the physical disk. The state database replica should be added back before you enable the component. The same procedure applies to hot spares.
During component replacement for a RAID-5 volume, data is recovered in one of two ways. The data is recovered either from a hot spare currently in use or from using the RAID-5 parity, when no hot spare is in use.
When you replace a component for a RAID-1 volume, Solaris Volume Manager automatically starts resynchronizing the new component with the rest of the volume. When the resynchronization completes, the replaced component becomes readable and writable. If the failed component has been replaced with data from a hot spare, the hot spare is placed in the “Available” state and made available for other hot spare replacements.
The new component must be large enough to replace the old component.
As a precaution, back up all data before you replace “Last Erred” devices.