Help. faulty drive in Mirror system pair on Smart Array 3200

[Jed Browne]

I have a faulty drive in a mirror (raid 1) for the OS NT4. Faulty drive is Disk 0, with a Smart Array 3200 controller. If I hot swap the disk with a duplicate replacement while on-line, will the controller just re-build the mirror back from disk 1 to disk 0 with out any problems to the OS? Or is there a procedure to manage a faulty drive in a mirrored pair?

[JohnWRuffo · Accepted solution]

Jed:

Yes, you can install the drive while the O/S is up and the rebuild process will kick off.

If you are concened about removing and inserting drives while the server is up, you can do this while the system is down.
At POST, the controller will detect the drive replacement and ask you if you want to rebuild.
You answer by pressing F1 to rebuild and the server boots up normally.
You will see the drive lights blink steady for a while (time for rebuild depends on the size) but is normally completed within 30 minutes or so.

Warning: If you answer F2 to the POST question, the new drive will be marked failed and the rebuild will not progress.

Here is a document that can give you some guidence in rebuilding:
ftp://ftp.compaq.com/pub/products/servers/proliantstorage/drives-enclosures/hp%20hard%20drive%20replacement.pdf