Got a RAID? Are you sure?

Nothing more amusing then when you take the cover off a server, clear all the debris and grey "fluff" out of the box to add some RAM to a machine and find 2 hard drives where there should be 3.

Well, I say should be, but let's put it a different way, I was told it was a RAID drives and I presumed RAID 5, evidently the hardware builder did not or the box was never ordered with more than 2 drives.

Given the box was running Lotus Domino apps it didn't need huge disk space like a mail server, but still, mirrored drives?

Yes, the person built the best with what they had, but they left one problem. What happens when one of the 2 drives fails. Yes, you lose the server until someone can fix it, if they can. Hope you had backups.

So if you are a new admin or even an experienced one and end up in a new environment it's always a good idea to get an inventory of what is in the servers. You never know when one of them might go belly up on you, like in the middle of a holiday weekend perhaps.