HP xw4600 RAID Controller

[Bruce Farmer]

I have an HP xw4600 workstation that I have configured for RAID 5 using three identical drives. I configured the RAID array according to the instructions in the HP xw4600 Workstation Service and Technical Reference Guide. The RAID array is operating properly. However, when I simulated a drive failure by shutting down the workstation and disconnecting a drive, the workstation showed no indication of the drive failure when it was restarted. I could see during the boot process that there were only two active drives in the RAID array and the computer operated normally with the failed drive, but the system did not alert that a drive had failed. Is this normal behavior? With other RAID controllers I've used, an audible alarm is sounded when a drive fails. Without some type of alarm, you could easily not notice that a drive had failed and if a second drive then failed you would lose your data and the whole point in having a mirrored RAID to protect against data loss would be moot. Is it possible that I have misconfigured the RAID and that is why it is not alrming on drive failure? Any information you can provide regarding this would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Bruce Farmer