1 of RAID-1 drive is failing - need secure erase?

[televisi]

Hi guys,
At the moment my office server is using Adaptec 5405 RAID with 2xSAS drives (2 x Seagate ST3300656SS 300GB).
It's been running 24x7 for the past 6 months since I bought them.

Now, the thing is, 1 of them is failing and I need to contact the supplier to get replacement (as still under 5 years warranty).

Because this is SAS drive, I can't as easy as connect to my home pc (as normal home pc only comes with SATA and IDE connectors) to check whether the drive is really corrupted / broken OR just the RAID hardware issue (ie: need firmware upgrade, etc).

Now, from your experience, can you please tell me whether:
1. the 'corrupted' drive should be 'securely erased'?
2. or just trust the RAID hardware which saying it's already corrupted/broken and won't be able to revive it?

as I don't want to return the hardware before ensure that data inside the drive securely erased...

Ps: from the Adaptec tool, I can do 'secure erase' to a specific drive, but because the hardware is broken/corrupted/offline, obviously I can't 'erase' them, if you know what I mean...

Thanks in advance

[raptor_pa]

It would be preferred to do a secure erase, is the drive ofline or the volume? Secure erase uses the ATA command set to erase the drive, so as long as teh drive is physically identified you should be able to run it, if the drive is physically failing, then that is another issue. No good way to erase a physically failed drive that does not involve a sledge hammer or large drill :) and that generally voids the warranty

[televisi]

Yes, the drive is offline (er... How will I know whether it's the drive / volume that is offline?)...

If I just plug in the 'corrupted' drive and unplug the 'fine' drive, it's just saying: "array status: offline".

And if I plug in the other way around (plug in the 'fine' drive and unplug the 'corrupted' one), it's just saying: "array status: degraded".

I'll try to secure erase it tonight, seems a good idea...

Now, let's say, I can secure erase it, will I be able to reuse it?

[raptor_pa]

Again it depends what the actual issue is, if the disk has a physical failure, no - and the secure erase will probably fail. If it is a logical failure in teh volume, then yes it should be reuseable. Secure erase itself leaves a healthy disk reuseable, albeit in need of formatting.