autoraid restore

[Dagmar Boelen]

Hi,

Recently a hp-ux machine with a autoraid was introduced in our office. What shoud I do when one of the disks fails in the autoraid? Simply replace the disks and autoraid fixes the data on the failed disk? Restore it?

[Pete Randall]

Hi Dagmar,

The AutoRAID is designed to automatically maintain your data in either RAID5 or RAID0/1 depending on needs at the time. In either case, you are protected against disk failure. In RAID5, parity data is stored on another disk that will be used to rebuild the failed disk. In RAID0/1, the data is fully mirrored and the mirror copy will be used to recover the failed disk.

So the answer is: just replace the failed disk and watch the lights flash as it automagically gets rebuilt!



Pete

[Eugeny Brychkov · Accepted solution]

Pete is absolutely correct. I would add that:
- autoraid is proof against ONE disk failure at a time. This means that as soon as disk is failed, you need to replace it ASAP. If second disk will fail (and rebuild in progress or failed) then you may face data loss;
- when disk is failed autoraid in warning mode (displayed on its LCD) and bad disk is indicated by yellow led;
- as soon as disk fails autoraid starts rebuild. Depending on AHS setting and available space it may succeed or fail. As soon as rebuild is completed successfully autoraid may lose one more drive;
- when you replace disk autoraid starts balancing. This is a process to fill new disk with user data;
- you should check autoraid status regularly facing it (looking to leds to be all green) and using 'arraydsp -a' and 'logprint -t All -v' commands
Eugeny

[Eugeny Brychkov]

Check manuals at http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/DocumentIndex.jsp?contentType=SupportManual&docIndexId=3124&locale=en_US&prodSeriesId=33733&prodTypeId=12169
Eugeny

[Pete Randall]

In response to Eugeny's comments on the need to replace a failed disk quickly, we always kept a spare on hand. That way, we could replace as soon as the failure was discovered, then contact HP about a replacement.


Pete

[Rainer von Bongartz]

and PLEASE do not swap any disk while the AutoRaid is in the rebuild state

Regards
Rainer

[Ivajlo Yanakiev]

also

Use STM, SAM and 12H display to be sure which
disk is falure, if you remove wrong disk your data will falure. Never let free slots in your array BECAUSE of air flow. Replace your disk for 5 min or your 12 will go down

[Ivajlo Yanakiev]

also

Use STM, SAM and 12H display to be sure which
disk is falure, if you remove wrong disk your data will falure. Never let free slots in your array BECAUSE of air flow. Replace your disk for 5 min or your 12H will go down

[Eugeny Brychkov]

Ivajlo is right about fast replacement, but this rule applies to autoraid fans only. Replace fans ASAP and do not remove old failed fans until will get new good on hands for fast replacement
Eugeny