My RAID array had a hotspare that automatically kicked in when one of the hard drives from the RAID failed. I have a new HDD in the slot of the fail drive now. Will this new drive become hot spare automatically or do I have to go to Adaptec Console and set it?
Adaptec console will automatically make this drive a hot-spare. You don't need to restart the system and make it hotspare in Adaptec Console. You can check the status of this drive by using Adaptec Management software.