P410 failed - data still good.

[Litch]

P410/512, 4 x 3TB disks, RAID 5.

Some time ago, the UPS failed and the array said "Waiting for Rebuild" - I knew the disks were fine so I tried to "urge" it to rebuild - since there ARE NO OPTIONS TO DO IT VIA THE HPACUCLI?!?! But that's another rant for another thread.

Turned off the server, ejected disk #4 and turned it on, the status was then "One or more of the disks have moved or been removed, please restore previous configuration".

So, while still powere on at that state, re-inserted the disk, a few seconds pass and the array spots the other disk, but now marks the array as "Failed".

What the hell? I thought this was RAID 5 ?!?

Anyway, so what I need to know is:

Can I delete this LD, re-create it exactly the way it was, and just force a repair on it?

To be honest, I'm failing to see the benefit or the "Smart" in this "SmartArray" - Why does it have to be so hard? 

I may as well just use Linux RAID or btrfs.

[gregersenj]

How do you know that the disks isk OK?

And why did you remove disk 4?

At first the Array had the status of ready for rebuild. This indicate the RAID is in a degraded state.

In this case check problem using the ACU/ADU or the SMH, and take proper action from here.

If a Smart Array controller suffer from a disk failure, the affectet logical drives will go into degraded mode, an it will wait for the failed disk to be replaced. (If you got a hot spare, It will start reconstruction emidiatly.) When you replace the failed disk it will reconstruct the array/ logical drives.

If you reboot the server while the Array is in degraded state, the SA will prompt you, that a disk is failed or missing. It will ask you if you want to disable the affectet LD's press F1 or if you want to start server with LD in interim recovery mode press F2. It will wait for 30 seconds then it will default F2 - With 1 exception! For some reason the default was changed to F1 on some firmware versions, and I belive it was the fw used on the P410, and this was corrected on fw 5.70 (as far as I remember).

If the LD(s) is disabled, all you have to do is re-enable it, and it will rebuild.

If an Array / LD suffer from catastrophic disk failure, it will disable all affected LD's.

If you can get the failed disks on-line, you can re-enable the LD's.

How to:

If you got catastrophic disk failure, you can try to restart the disk, by remove / re-insert disks. If you are lucky they will restart.

If the LD's is disable, you can reboot the server, and press F2, or using the ACU, you can re-enable the disabled drives.

I never use the CLI for the smart array, so you will have to read the manual your self.

In the GUI, you select the disabled LD and press enable.

If you have luck, all you have to do is enable the LD(s)

BR

/jag

[Litch]

I suppose I should ask, specifically:

When creating a RAID-5 array, does the controller initialise the data by writing zeros to the whole array?

Or does it read the stripe, compute the parity, and write that to disk like it would for a normal data-write event (once the array is active).

[Litch]

Output from HPACUCLI.

=> ctrl slot=7 show config

Smart Array P410 in Slot 7 (sn: PACCRID11180J9T)

array A (SATA, Unused Space: 0 MB)

logicaldrive 1 (8.2 TB, RAID 5, Failed)

physicaldrive 2I:0:5 (port 2I:box 0:bay 5, SATA, 3 TB, OK)
physicaldrive 2I:0:6 (port 2I:box 0:bay 6, SATA, 3 TB, OK)
physicaldrive 2I:0:7 (port 2I:box 0:bay 7, SATA, 3 TB, OK)
physicaldrive 2I:0:8 (port 2I:box 0:bay 8, SATA, 3 TB, OK)

"How do you know that the disks isk OK?"

- Beacuse at no point did a disk report as BAD

"And why did you remove disk 4?"

- Pick a number between 1 and 4....

"If the LD's is disable, you can reboot the server, and press F2, or using the ACU"

- Due to the constraints of this motherboard, I am unable to access the SA BIOS (Booting UFI mode on a S5500HCV mobo).

- I'm downloading the offline ACU and attempting to do what I can from there instead of the CLI.