Intermixing SCSI rpm speeds

[bizh0p]

So, I have a quick question, has anyone heard of intermixing scsi hard drives with different speeds within the same RAID 5. I have a Dell PowerEdge 4400 with three 10K rpm drives in this with a RAID 5 array. The hard drives are all the same 18G U3/160, 10K. I have one that is degraded and needs replacement, when calling Dell for a replacement they are telling me that this will work within the same array.

18GB 15K rpm U320 SCSI.

Any insight will be appreciated.

 

[tdg]

It'll work just fine. The array can only go as fast as the slowest link which would be your other drives and controller.

 

[dewhite]

ya - it'll just be the new strong link in your chain...

actually would be good because as drives fail you can replace them with 15krpm, thus eventually upgrading the whole array.

 

[zandor]

That'll work. Though if it's not under warranty (ie- you're buying the replacement) I'd have a look just swapping the drive out of the carrier. Dell, etc. generally rip you off on drives, and I've never seen a scsi hot-swap system that didn't use standard 80-pin SCA SCSI drives. Generally speaking you can just remove the drive from the proprietary carrier and replace it. If you do some digging you can usually also find knock-off (or even OEM...) carriers for a particular system & just load them up w/ your own drives. We used to do this with Sun hardware at my last job.
The one thing you have to watch out for is an evil custom bios hack to make sure you only use thier drives. I doubt Dell is this evil, but you never know.