When RAID 5 Hesitates, Freezes, or Drops a Drive — What Happens Next
RAID 5 is one of the most common configurations in business-class storage — and one of the most misunderstood in failure.
When something goes wrong, the messages are often vague or misleading. One disk might go “foreign,” the array might disappear mid-rebuild, or two drives might drop out seemingly at once. Here’s where we translate those symptoms into clear next steps.
RAID 5 Triage Pages
- RAID 5 Offline — But No Drives Failed?
- Foreign Config Detected — Import or Not?
- Rebuild Started — Now RAID Is Gone?
- Virtual Disk Not Detected After Power Loss
- RAID 5, Two Drives Failed — Is It Game Over?
- Why Is My Rebuild Stuck at 0%?
Technical Note TN-R5-001
Title: RAID 5 Single-Parity Failure Modes, Rebuild Breaks, and Metadata Drift
This in-depth note explains what really happens inside RAID 5 when the single-parity safety margin collapses — from latent sector errors turning a one-disk loss into an effective double-failure, to rebuild stalls, foreign-config traps, and post-power-loss metadata drift. It is the internal reference behind every RAID 5 page in this series.
- How Single-Parity Protection Fails in Real Systems
- Latent Sector Errors Turning 1-Disk Loss Into Effective 2-Disk Failure
- Rebuild Stalls and Controllers Forcing “Safe Stops”
- Foreign Config & Identity Drift After Power Events
- RAID Online but Files Missing or Wrong Size
- Correct Forensic Triage Sequence Before Any Repair Attempt
Read the Full Technical Note TN-R5-001 →
/raid-5-triage/tn-r5-001