HD failure?

[Wade Preston Shearer]

So, in addition to my issues with my external drive, my server went  
down last night for another reason. It had something to do with one  
of the drives (in RAID). It appears that the HD failed, but the  
strange thing is that it is back up and running now. The reason that  
I discovered something was wrong is because the server went down and  
then would not come back up. This was because it could not find any  
logical drives. Inside the RAID utility, it reiterated that there  
were no logical drives. My initial reaction was "oh, crap, they have  
both failed." We tried pulling one out at a time though and rebooting  
to narrow our conclusion, something that was a good idea. Turns out  
that only one of them was bad. This is where it gets weird though. It  
kind of seems like it might not have been a drive at all; I am  
wondering if it was the RAID controller. I say this because the point  
of RAID is so that one of the drives can fail and things will keep  
going. If one of the drives was still good then the controller should  
have still said that an array at least existed. I rebooted with the  
one good drive and everything came up hunky-dory. I rebooted a few  
other times checking and testing things and then had the idea to try  
putting the "bad" drive back in. Interestingly, when I did, the RAID  
picked it up and started "reconstituting" it. Now, it says that  
everything is peaches. I can't ignore that something bad happened  
though. What are people's impressions or thoughts? Sound like perhaps  
the controller just had a heart attack and perhaps there was never  
anything wrong with the drive at all? Perhaps the "bad" drive really  
did freak out but not to the point of failing and after having the  
RAID rebuild it, it's okay for another go? Is there a way to test if  
you controller is on the fritz? I think I would be wise to order a  
backup drive. Any other suggestions?
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