Which of the following must be done before powering down a storage array?

Deleting hot spares is not a prerequisite for powering down a storage array; hot spares are part of the array's internal redundancy and do not affect a graceful shutdown.

Powering down a storage array while I/O operations are actively in progress can lead to data corruption, incomplete writes, or file system inconsistencies across the connected hosts. Therefore, it is critical to gracefully stop all application and operating system I/O, unmount file systems, or put applications into a quiescent state to prevent data loss or damage during the shutdown process.

Defragmenting volumes is a performance optimization task and is not a required or beneficial step to perform immediately before powering down a storage array.

Uninstalling HBA drivers on servers is an unnecessary and disruptive step for a storage array shutdown, as HBA drivers manage connectivity and are not directly involved in the array's power-down procedure.