Noob questions here, bear with:

 

Firstly, do I need to perform a parity check regularly to make sure it's up to scratch (and if so, how often?)

Secondly, does the parity drive update itself at the same time as the drives, or do I need to make it do that manually every so often?

 

Thanks!

No clue to either, but, logically I'm going to take a guess at number two (Don't take my word on it though, get someone else to verify it):-

 

#2. It updates at the same time, else, how would the cache drive give better write speeds? Only difference is that it's out of the array, so, logically, that means that writing to stuff in parity is slower and the only reason that that could be true for is if it's trying to calculate the parity.

The parity drive gets updated at the same time that the destination data drive gets written to.  No manual intervention is needed.

 

Yes - regular parity checks are recommended (investigate unMenu and the Monthly Parity check package).  Again, no manual intervention is needed apart from occasionally checking the array status.  Ultimately things can be configured to send email alerts when stuff goes wrong, although I have never taken that step.

Great, I thought as much for both but figured I'd check just to be safe.

 

Many thanks.

Just to point out that SimpleFeatures (SF) also gives a GUI option for scheduling regular parity checks.  I much prefer SF to unMenu (although they are not exactly equivalent in features), but that is just a personal preference.