Personally I've not had much luck with hot-spares, I'd prefer to have the spare in the array (in the case of RAID-6) so I can find out if there's a problem with

Personally I've not had much luck with hot-spares, I'd prefer to have the spare in the array (in the case of RAID-6) so I can find out if there's a problem with that drive before it's the only thing standing in the way of total failure. I'm a fan of the temperature@lert USB sensors; $130 gets you peace of mind: http://www.temperaturealert.com/ http://www.temperaturealert.com/