Drive failure and replacement

[Gerardo Aguilera]

Hi!! My Smart Array 221 Controller shows a post error during boot and suggest me to change one of my 4 RAID5 9.1 GB array as soon as posible.
The problem is that I can´t find a 9.1 hot plug disk for replacement. The smaller I found is 36.4 GB and my array´s manual says that the biggest hard disk is 18.2 GB.
Should I have any problems with 36.4 or 72.8 disks?
Must I buy a new array controller?
Thanks in advance.

[Mahesh Kumar Malik]

Hi Gerardo

You may replace 9.1Gb with 36.4Gb HDD. 36.4Gb HDD should have same speed. Array controller will use 9.1Gb of replaced disk. You may create additional Logical volume on unused capacity.

Regards
Mahesh

[Steven Clementi]

Gerardo:

First, you should probably update the firmware on the card, then go by what the latest firmware supports. I do not see why a 221 can not support a 36GB drive or even a 72GB drive.

Second, once confirmed that you can use the bigger drive, you can replace the failed drive with a larger drive BUT you will not be able to utilize the extra space unless you replace ALL the disks. As Mahesh suggests, the array will only use 9.1GB of space.. but the rest is unavailable until you decide to replace ALL the disks.

Once replaced, you would be able to create additional Logical Units and/or possibly expand your existing array or logical drives.


Steven

[Gerardo Aguilera]

Thanks guys!!
I'm thinking about installing 2 new 36.4 GB HD in RAID1. This way I'll have more disk space than now and could let my 3 * 9.1 GB RAID5 for auxiliary space or something.
Another last question, the problem with my wrong disk is about "spin up time". It doesn't sound very critical, does it?

[Uwe Zessin]

Hm, I've never heard about a spin-up problem, except when the disk drives are in an external cabinet with a separate power source and somebody forgot to power it up, first.

A storage controller usually asks the disk drive if it is ready and some even send a START command if the drive is set to not spin-up on power-up.