EVA cache battery failure

[Oscar_Maimó]

Hi gurus:
Last night an EVA8000 cache battery failed with the corresponding failed state in Command View. I pull off the battery and reinserted again, but the same. Then I swapped the battery with another in the other controller and then the good one became "unknown" state and the failed remained failed. So now I have two batteries unusable one of them in unknown state never seen by me.
My question: what means unknown state??
Why this state appear after I swapped the batteries??
Any ideas??
Thanks in advance

Oscar

[Johan Guldmyr · Accepted solution]

Hi,

What firmware(XCS) are you running?

One was just released not too long ago that correct some battery problems for especially this EVA model.

Take out the first broken battery and look on the connectors - any corrosion/miscoloring? Also look inside the controller (you may need flash light) for the same kind of problems not uncommon with batteries.

If you want I guess you can also try reboot but I doubt this will improve your situation. I fear that when you swapped the batteries maybe some of the corrosion was transferred. I guess you could try cleaning, but please, please, be careful.

[Oscar_Maimó]

Software version is CR0ECAxcsp-6110. Two years ago I had a corrosion problem and I had to change the backplane too, because it was dirty. But all seems good now, no corrosion. The states of batteries are traslated with them when I swapp them.

Thanks

[Johan Guldmyr]

Ah ok. That's not nice, to have to replace the backplane.
But for now, check the release notes of the latest firmware. And I would try a restart of the controller(s).

[hvhari]

It is not advisable to swap the failed battery to any other controller. Once a battery is marked failed by the controller, it can not be re-used as the failed status is flagged onto battery itself.

If there is no damages visible in the connectors on the controller where battery is installed, its fine to go for a replacement battery.

Unknown status should get recovered by ensuring correct seating of battery & a reboot of the controller on which this status is shown. Please ensure multipathing is configured and working to minimise disturbance to the hosts.

[Oscar_Maimó]

Thanks, for reply. I swapped the battery to see if the problem was the battery or the controller socket. A couple o years ago I has corrosion situation on socket and I had to change the backplane.

Greetings
Oscar

[Mark...]

Hi,
If a battery fails in an EVA then that is that.
***Do not/it is not advisable*** to stick it another ctrl just to "see if it is" otherwise you may cause problems, as you have found out. Now it looks like you have two batteries marked as failed, instead of one.
To see if there is corrosion then look at the connectors and/or use a torch to check the backplane/midplane where the battery came from!
If you had XCS V6.000 or ealier then you need to reboot the ctrl after replacing the batterie(s) if I remember correctly. You do not need to do this.
Mark...

[bennyb]

We have found that these batteries are normally failing due to the age/Hold up time of the cells. Suggest finding a new battery or one that has new batteries installed in it and has had the dates re done or the board replaced with a new board. Once the batteries have been marked as bad, replacing the cells has no effect on the failed status.   If anyone ever needs a few spares feel free to contact us, we have kept a few around for these arrays.