[Leaplist] 3ware RAID degraded drive

[Justin M. Keyes]

Hi fellas,

I have a 2-drive RAID 1 array with two of these drives:
Western Digital Caviar RE WD2500YS 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s [1]

Is there an open-source debian package to check a 3ware RAID array? Or
do you just download from the 3ware site?

Also, what EXACTLY does it mean for a drive in a RAID 1 array to be
"degraded"? Does it mean that the drive is absolutely finished? Or
could the drive still be useable, and the RAID array just got
out-of-sync somehow (I have a UPS, so no power outages or anything
like that...)?

I don't know much about this stuff, and I would like clarification,
because I just bought these two "enterprise level" drives about 6
months ago, and already one of them is degraded. I just can't BELIEVE
I lost another @#$%& hard drive. I have only owned about 8 hard drives
in my life, and 3 of them have gone bad. wtf?

So, when the RAID controller reports that a drive is degraded, does
that mean for sure that the drive is dead? Should I try rebuilding the
array?

Is it dangerous to rebuild a RAID 1 array with one possibly faulty
drive? I mean, after all, I imagine the data is just being copied from
the good drive to the bad one...

Thanks for your help!

[1] http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822136055

-- 
Justin M. Keyes