Spare disk - hot standby?

[Ratzie]

I am testing out my MSA30 with the 6420 Smart Array controller.
Easy peasy setup!

I wanted to test fail over, and pulled a disk.
I do get logs, and it recognizes the disk as pulled.

My question is:
Why not the automatic failover to the spare disk?
Do I have to initiate a command?
I can not find anything in the docs.
Is the spare disk a "hot" hot standby?

**************

# of Logical Drives................. 7
# of Physical Disks Configured...... 14
# of Physical Disks Detected........ 13

# RAID Size Status

0 1+0 69460 MB OK
1 1+0 69460 MB OK
2 1+0 69460 MB OK
3 1+0 69460 MB OK
4 1+0 69460 MB USING INTERIM RECOVERY MODE
5 1+0 69460 MB OK
6 0 69460 MB OK

******************
Location Ch ID Type Capacity Status

external 1 0 DISK 72.8 GB OK
external 1 1 DISK 72.8 GB OK
external 1 2 DISK 72.8 GB OK
external 1 3 DISK 72.8 GB OK
external 1 4 DISK 72.8 GB OK
external 1 5 DISK 72.8 GB OK
external 1 8 DISK 72.8 GB SPARE
external 1 15 PROCESSOR
external 2 0 DISK 72.8 GB OK
external 2 1 DISK 72.8 GB OK
external 2 2 DISK 72.8 GB OK
external 2 3 DISK 72.8 GB OK
N/A 2 4 N/A N/A FAILED
external 2 5 DISK 72.8 GB OK
external 2 7 PROCESSOR
external 2 8 DISK 72.8 GB OK

[Torsten.]

Did you assign the spare disk to *this* logical drive?

[Ratzie]

So is that the step that is missing.
I have just assigned a disk as being spare.

So when a disk fails, I need to assign it to the logical? Then it will pick it up?

[Uwe Zessin]

Yes, my thoughts, too. The SmartArray controllers do not have "global" hot spares - you need to assign them to the desired logical disks.

[Torsten.]

You should assign the spare to a logical drive *before* a disk fails ;-)

from saconfig

To add spare drive to existing logical drive

saconfig /dev/cissX -A -s

[Ratzie]

That makes it difficult when you have 7 RAID 1 logical drives, and only 1 spare disk.
But I get it...

[Torsten.]

From the manual:

...
For any fault-tolerant configuration, you can create further protection against data loss by
assigning a physical disk as an online spare (or â hot spareâ ).
...
When multiple logical drives are defined on a controller, spare disks must be assigned
to each logical drive.
...


RAID Technology Overview
HP Smart Array RAID Controllers
HP Part Number: J6369-90050

[Ratzie]

So now I am in a pickle...
I assigned the disk as a spare:
saconfig /dev/ciss4 -A 0 -s 1:8

And when I try to assign it to a logical it complains...

# saconfig /dev/ciss4 -A 4 -s 1:8


saconfig (/dev/ciss4): Error - FW command bad status (IDENTIFY_PHYSICAL_DRIVE)
saconfig (/dev/ciss4): Command completed, but error has occurred, cmd_status=1

Physical drive 148 not responding

[Torsten. · Accepted solution]

Try to assign it to another logical drive (you are testing ..) - I think you cannot assign it to an already failed drive, because the controller want to write the information to all related disks.

[Ratzie]

Nope, same thing for any logical.