The answer is D. Perform a full backup.
Before replacing a failed drive in a RAID 5 array, the technician should perform a full backup of the data on the array to ensure that no data is lost during the hot swapping process. Hot swapping is the process of replacing a drive without shutting down the system or the array, which allows for faster recovery and minimal downtime. However, hot swapping also involves some risks, such as accidentally removing the wrong drive, damaging the new drive, or encountering another drive failure during the rebuild process. Therefore, performing a full backup is a precautionary measure that can prevent data loss in case of any unexpected errors or complications.
The other options are not the first steps that the technician should take before hot swapping the drive. Documenting the replacement date is a good practice, but it is not as important as backing up the data. Shutting down the array is not necessary for hot swapping, and it may cause more disruption to the system or the users. Safely disposing of the failed drive is a step that should be done after replacing it, not before.
[References:, Hot-swapping the hard drives when the RAID crashes | QNAP, section “Install a new drive to rebuild RAID 5 by hot swapping”: “Important: Do not install a new drive when the system is not in degraded mode, otherwise you may encounter unexpected system failures.”, Hot Swapping hard drives on Raid 5 with data on them - Spiceworks Community, reply by Magnus369: “Part of that slowness would be the raid level you are using. Highly doubt you can change it without losing data either, but your writes are going to be atrociously slow due to having to figure out parity across 11 drives for each write you do. While you may have a ton of space, it’s unstable and subject to self destruction.”, hard drive - How do I Change a damaged Disk in a Raid 5 array - Server Fault, answer by Chris S: “If you have another disk failure during rebuild you will lose all your data.”, , , , ]
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