ML110 G5 Raid 1 Rebuild

[agn_1]

Hi,

I'm running 2003 Server on ML110 G5, 2 x 1TB (RAID 1).

One of the drive has failed today.
port 0 = Harddisk A (Good)
port 1 = Harddisk B (Broken)

I couldn't get past the windows boot screen with both harddrives attached.
So i unplugged the broken disk and moved on with only single disk.
Now, the 2003 Server run normally with only one drive attached.

When i open HP Storage Manager on 2003 Server, i see :

Controller 1 (SATA HostRAID)
---> Direct-attached Device
Port 0 - Optimal (931.509 GB)
---> Logical Drives (1)
MIRR01 - degraded (931.384 GB)

I planned to buy the replacement today, with the same size (and brand).

So.. i guess what i'm going to do is :
1. shut down
2. plug the new drive
3. just turn on the computer
4. and let the array rebuild itself

The question then..
will the array rebuild correctly if i do it like that. can it choose which one is the 'master' and which is the 'slave'?
Or maybe, do i have to go to raid config tools (F8) to rebuild the array?

Are there any possibilities that can turn things wrong, like the empty drive duplicated to the good drive?

I don't wanna just guessing around and i really have to make myself 100% sure before i move on, because i put all my office documents and the OS installed on that drive.

thanks in advance for any suggestion..

[Ali · Accepted solution]

Hi there,

integrated SATA controller requires reboot to start the rebuild process...

there is nothing like primary and secondary concept in SATA.. it works on port no... however, it depends on your raid controller how it takes the drive as.

Fyi.. embedded sata controller is not intellegent controller so manual intervention is required.

there are two ways to rebuild the drive in 100 series...
System shutdown rebuild
1. Power down the system.
2. Replace the failed drive with a new one of equal or greater capacity.
3. Restart the system.
Using the RAID Configuration Utility 8
4. At the appropriate prompt during POST, press the Ctrl+A keys or the F8 key to access the RAID Configuration Utility.
5. From the menu, select Array Configuration Utility.
6. From the main menu of the array configuration utility, select Add/Delete Hotspares.
7. Assign the new drive as a hotspare.
The Rebuild task begins. All the data from the good drive is copied to the new one, and the original array is recreated.

Manual rebuild
IMPORTANT: If a hard drive in the array fails and the array does not have a hotspare, you must add a hotspare before you can rebuild the array.
1. From the main menu of the array configuration utility, select Manage Arrays.
2. From the List of Arrays, select the array that you want to rebuild.
3. Press the Ctrl+R keys to begin the rebuild process.

please follow the sequence, in order to rebuild the drive in 100 series servers.

thanks
Aftab

[Ali]

please refer to page no 7 on 100 series user guide for more clarity
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c00771065/c00771065.pdf

cheers!
Aftab

[agn_1]

Thanks aftab ali for such a quick and detailed answer.

I get the idea now.
So it means that i have to add the new drive as hotspare first.
After that, the controller will assume that there's a broken harddrive, so the hotspare will replace the broken harddrive, and then rebuild the hotspare into the array.

By the way, after reading some articles, i think that the idea of hotspare is to rebuild an array to the hotspare automatically if any of the array member failed.
But if we still have to do some interference on the progress of rebuilding the array, what's the worth of having some hotspare then?

[Ali]

yes that's true you have to add the drive as hotspare first.

I agree... but that's the process we need to follow for 100 series server.

I had tough time rebuilding my broken array... infact I had to call HP many times when I had this issue.. finally I could understand the concept of rebuilding the array on these servers and this information is not available in server documentatiion you have to specifically see embedded sata raid controller guide which is common for many 100 series servers.


what I understand that the Controller used in 100 series servers is based on software raid it is not true hardware raid controller as raid options are controlled by system bios of the server. So you have to tell controller what do you want do with it.

only advantage that I see having the hotspare is that you don't have reboot the server incase of a drive failure it will start the rebuilding the spare drive without any intervention and that can be monitored from the online sata raid manager available for few server

Hope this helps,

thanks
Aftab

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