How does the RHEL6 kernel handles mdadm raid 1 devices in case of a physical disk failure?

Solution Unverified - Updated -

Issue

We need to understand how kernel handles mdadm raid 1 devices in case of disk failures. What we have seen is that when disk is failing (not rapidly but slowly) system becomes unresponsive for some time. This is not always seen and it's almost impossible to reproduce. During that short time system commands (ls, pwd) are not responding but when disk is designated as faulty system becomes responsive again.
How it's possible that one task on multiprocessor system may hang whole OS?

Environment

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.3

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