topic DL380 G5 P400 Hard Read Errors - Imminent Failure in ProLiant Servers (ML,DL,SL)

DL380 G5 P400 Hard Read Errors - Imminent Failure

ptlinva12 — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 19:49:50 GMT

Hardware:
DL380 G5
P400 with (6) Physical 2.5" Drives
Three logical drives (Raid1+0)

We've replaced a drive that was failing due to Imminent Failure. During the rebuild, we started noticing HARD READ ERRORS increasing.

Now we have TWO hard disks in imminent failure.. both with the same RAID1+0 container.

We've put in a new P400 controller, new cache and battery, and a new drive backplane controller.

We then put in brand new drives - one at a time. The rebuild completed fine but the HARD READ ERRORS kept increasing (slowly but surely) until both drives failed again. We have now put in a total of (5) drives.

We've updated to the latest firmware using the newest downloaded firmware DVD to no avail.

We are looking for suggestions on what to try next. -= scratching my head =-

Thanks in advance for your time and consideration.

Your friend in Virginia,
Paul L.

Re: DL380 G5 P400 Hard Read Errors - Imminent Failure

Michael A. McKenney — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 20:09:45 GMT

Backup first. Install the latest firmware on the server, controller and drives. I have seen these errors be firmware glitches. firmware conflicts can cause this.

Re: DL380 G5 P400 Hard Read Errors - Imminent Failure

ptlinva12 — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 21:45:57 GMT

Thank you for taking the time to reply. I really do appreciate it.

I will do that. Thanks for the suggestions. I've also seen some REALLY WIERD issues resolved with firmware updates. I ran it once and even saw it update the drives firmware but the problems continued.

For now, I've removed the production drives and I've used the SmartStart CD to erase the machine and I've also deleted all the logical volumes on the P400 controller.

I then put in two of the drives (from yesterday) that failed with the predictive failures and I'm running the SmartStart diagnostics on them.

As of now, I'm 40% with no errors.

Quick Question: Is there a way to reset these drives that I have that are now reporting predictive failures? They are all brand new drives.

Thanks agian for your time and consideration. It is greatly apprecaited.

Your friend in Virginia,
Paul Laudenslager

Re: DL380 G5 P400 Hard Read Errors - Imminent Failure

Manoj Mudaliar — Sun, 01 May 2011 05:08:45 GMT

Hi Friend,

If these suggestions dont help, you can even give a try at the data cable going from the backplane to the RAID card and the blackplane itself.

Regards

Manoj

Re: DL380 G5 P400 Hard Read Errors - Imminent Failure

ptlinva12 — Sun, 01 May 2011 09:19:01 GMT

We did a drive backplane already to no avail. We haven't tried the cables yet but I guess we should.

The good news is that from the time I ask for them the parts are here in 2 hours! I'm impressed. -= grin =-

Thank you for taking the time to reply.

Your friend in Virginia,
Paul L.

Re: DL380 G5 P400 Hard Read Errors - Imminent Failure

Michael A. McKenney — Mon, 02 May 2011 00:44:41 GMT

If you do all the firmware on the drives, you could try replacing the controller first. If it is onboard, replace the server board. I had three new drives all fail in a row. They were replacing a bad drive. HP brought out four drives in one day. Fourth worked. It could be a bad drive. I doubt a bad cable. What did diagnostics show?