E200 Hot swap procedure on ML310 G5

[HeyCompMan]

Well, after attempting hot-swap on the embedded SATA controller and failing, we installed the E200 controller and new cable. In attempting to boot up, it wouldn't recognize the factory installed SBS 2003 so we had to reinstall from scratch. Would have beeen nice to have a migration process, maybe its there and I just missed it.

Anyway, via ORCA we configured two 250s drives as boot/raid 0+1 mirror drives, and later via ACU we added two basic 500s as backup drives that we expect to pull in a hotswap fashion for each backup cycle.

Disk manager shows the two 250s as one basic drive, which is different than how it showed under the embedded SATA controller, which was two dynamic drives which were RAID 1.

Anyway, my need is to be able to pull either of the 500's while the machine is running, for off-site backup purposes. I tested pulling one of them, but the system didn't like it. Said I was going to lose data. I powered down then powered back up with the drive reinserted again and all was well.

What is the procedure to pull a drive from a running E200 setup?

It would be great if there was a button or link in Disk manager to prepare a drive to be pulled.

Can you tell me the steps to do this and then to reinsert a drive later?

Thank you,

David Johnston
heycompman@comcast.net

[KarloChacon]

hi

no there is no migration process between SATA embedded and Smart Array just to let you know
Embebbed SATA is Software/Firmware RAID on the other hand Smart array is completely Hardware RAID.

for your second question
there is nothing special or switch or button,
removing a HDD while you have RAID 1 is just take it out and put it back

I don't know which message you got when you removed it but of course is going to tell you or prevent you about data lost since RAID is not fault tolerance since you removed 1 HDD and if the other HDD fails is
not good at all
that's how hot plug and smart array controllers work

bye

[HeyCompMan]

Thank you for your reply. Well, I had Disk Manager up when I pulled the 500. After doing so, I expected to see the entry for this drive vanish from the list of drives, but it didnt. I opened Windows Explorer to see if it thought the drive was gone but it still listed it as being present as well. I clicked on the drive and it said drive not found. This didn't feel like it was working right. I was expecting something similar to when
i eject a flash drive. Does this follow your experience??

Thank you again,

David

[HeyCompMan]

One clarification -- there are 4 drives in the cage, two 250s set as RAID, and two 500s that I havn't set as RAID. The first two show up as a single RAID 0+1, and as far as I understand, the second two are not RAID, just basic drives. So, when either of the 500's are pulled they shouldn't have an effect on the other since they are independent, do I understand that right?

[KarloChacon]

mmm

are they RAID 0?

what do you see in Array configuration utility?


you have those attached to e200 or Embedded SATA?

[HeyCompMan]

This model has a cage that holds 4 drives in hotswap removable containers. The cage has one 4-conductor cable socket that was originally fitted with a four-conductor sata cable that went to the motherboard. Now, since I installed the E200, I replaced the cable with one that takes goes from the E200 socket 1, to the 4-conductor cable socket on the 4-drive cage. Therefore all 4 drives in the cage are controlled by the E200 controller. The main reason that we got the E200 was so that we could have removability without needing to shut the machine down. The first two drives set up as RAID 0+1 (not RAID 1) is a bonus...

[Jimmy Vance]

So if I understand your setup correctly, you configured the (2) 250gb drives as RAID 0+1 and the 500gb drives as two separate RAID 0 volmes in ACU. When you boot the system the E200 will show 3 logical drives.

Since the 500gb drives are RIAD 0, there is a possibilty to lose data if you pull one while the system is running. Since there is no fault tolerance you see the message about loosing data. If the OS happens to make a write while your pulling the drive you could scramble the disk.

While I understand what your trying to do, it wouldn't be my first suggestion for a backup solution.

The only way to safely accomplish what your trying to do without the chance for loss of data is to power the server down and remove a drive.

[HeyCompMan]

I am baffled. Why would HP market a machine with drives that re obviously designed to for hot (while running) swap when there is no way to perform this. What am I missing??? There should be a clean way to eject or dismount the drive and safely remove it with NO potential for lost data. Why else would there be hot-swap drives???

Maybe what I'm not grasping is the underlying architecture of RAID that is preventing hot-swap activity... Any additional explanations would be very appreciated, thanks, david