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Re: Drives "failing" on DL380 G3

 
Roger71
New Member

Drives "failing" on DL380 G3

Following a power failure on my server, everything powered-up again fine until several hours later where 5 of the 6 installed drives displayed fault lights.

After a few restarts, the scsi array configuration (F8) was very sluggish to enter into and navigate, also drives would still show a failed state. I then power-down for 20 minutes then tried again, suddenly all was ok, the ESX booted ok, and all data was ok... until a further 12 hours later when the same fault occurred.

any ideas on what needs to be replaced please?
7 REPLIES 7
JuanK_1
Advisor

Re: Drives "failing" on DL380 G3

Hi, Roger.

Is it possible to send a copy of the Array Diagnostics Report (ADU)?

Thank you.
AMironov
New Member

Re: Drives "failing" on DL380 G3

I think it could be or scsi backplane or controller. If controller is integrated you should replace motherboard.
Roger71
New Member

Re: Drives "failing" on DL380 G3

Thank you, I'll need some time to obtain the diagnostic report. I will report back in a couples days. One other thing, if I move all 6 drives to another identical server and install them in the same order - will they carry over logical drive configuration and boot correctly without reconfiguration? thanks
Roger71
New Member

Re: Drives "failing" on DL380 G3

I've attached the ADU report. Please have a look. I've no idea what it all means.
JuanK_1
Advisor

Re: Drives "failing" on DL380 G3

The Storage Controller is Smart Array 5i in slot 0 running with the FW revision 2.38. Please upgrade its firmware as soon as possible. Also the equipment has only one HDD connected and you indicated that it has 6 HDDs on it. If the other HDDs were connected while you ran this report this means that they are not detected at all (the ADU is not reporting errors, it just does not detect the drives).

If that is the issue we can say that there is a communication problem between the HDDs and the Controller (this means backplane and/or cables) If you want to troubleshoot I suggest you this:

- Swap the data cables and verify if the issue now occurs with the Physical Drive 2:0. If that is the case, go ahead and replace the SCSI cables.
- If the issue is the remains in the same HDDs replace the HDD backplane.
- If it is possible to swap the drives to another Server (same model and controller) please do it if you want to confirm that the drives are not the problem (just installed them in their original positions). The new controller will read the RAID configuration from the RIS Tables of the drives.
- If you already confirmed that cable, backplane and HDDs are OK. The last option will be to replace the Storage Controller.

So far, it seems that the data cable or the backplane Port is damaged.

I hope this information helps.

Regards;
JuanK_1
Advisor

Re: Drives "failing" on DL380 G3

Go ahead and start replacing the backplane and data cables at the same time. I found several bus failures in the Storage subsystem. By the mean time test the drives into a another Server if possible.

Regards;
Roger71
New Member

Re: Drives "failing" on DL380 G3

thank you Juan K for your advice. I should have mentioned that I have since removed all six drives and installed another single drive so that I could install 2003 Server and the HP diagnostic software. The original 6 drives are configured for ESX Server 3.5 and I wanted to keep them intact.

I haven't yet installed any diag software onto the ESX.

Did the report contain anything useful?
I'm looking into changing the backplane and I believe the controller is integrated onto the system-board, so I may be swapping that out too. My DL380 G3 is the 3.06Ghz version.

I'll look at updating the controller firmware first. thank you