ThomGeo, in nearly 10 years of setting up networks with RAID arrays, I have never, repeat never, lost data due to hard disk failure. Have always used the RAID 5 with hot spare option. I have a client in Atlanta who has had his external RAID array running for 4 years. He has had 4 hard drives fail over that time. At no time, did he have to stop running his law firm because of that failure. I receive an email telling me driveX has failed and the hot spare has is now Drive X.
In each case, I was the one who called him to say "Drive X has failed" Please remove drive X and put in the spare drive" After that I would remote into that machine and configure the array transparently.
Now there may be configurations that work better; however, this configuration, has worked for me.
