In systems that support hardware RAID, hot swapping allows for the replacement of a failed disk without shutting down the system. This capability is crucial for maintaining uptime and ensuring data redundancy and availability, especially in critical environments. The RAID controller rebuilds the data on the new disk using redundancy data from the other disks in the array, ensuring no data loss and minimal impact on system performance.

In the context of a FortiAnalyzer unit equipped with hardware RAID support, the optimal approach to addressing a hard disk failure is to perform a hot swap of the disk. Hardware RAID configurations are designed to provide redundancy and fault tolerance, allowing for the replacement of a failed disk without the need to shut down the system. Hot swapping enables the administrator to replace the faulty disk with a new one while the system is still running, and the RAID controller will rebuild the data on the new disk, restoring the RAID array to its fully operational state.References:FortiAnalyzer 7.2 Administrator Guide - "Hardware Maintenance" and "RAID Management" sections.