Raid question for proliant dl380 g7

[Mike-Eno]

Hi, I have a proliant dl380 g7 with a failed disk in my raid5. So I have removed the failed disk (bay4). I rebooted the server to go into the raid manager bios (f8 at reboot) but the only thing I can do there is delete or view raid. 

I wanted to verify if spare replaced the drive or not, very little information there. So I booted into windows and opened array configuration utility. Now I am not sure what to understand in the info I get there. First the spare is shown as "active spare". If I look at the physical view,  the active spare icon shows some plus signs moving around the icon. Not sure what that means.

Here is the info I get;

When clicking on the array on the left pane, physical view, array with spare

- status failed (didn't the spare do his job so it's supposed to be status OK?)

- Failed drive; bay 4, assigned spare bay 7 (active spare)

When clicking on the spare drive in left pane

- Status ; ok

- drive configuration type; spare

Choosing "logical drive" in left pane, logical view

- Status : ok

- Parity initialization status; initialization completed

- Array status; failed

For me there are some conflicting information. So what does it all mean? Did the spare replaced the failed drive? Now do I just have to replace my failed drive in bay4?

Normally in raid configuration managers you have access to a history of what happened, like (drive 4 failed, spare drive rebuilding, etc....) but on this server I have no information like this.

Last time we changed the failed drive and server did not reboot. We had to put back the failed drive and do a "last know good" in windows so I wanted to verify all the info regarding the state of the raid and I am lost.

Please advise

Thanks

[Torsten.]

>> array configuration utility.

Not SSA (Smart Storage Administrator)?

Looks like you are using a very old version?

However, if a drive fails and the spare kicks in, the controller needs to rebuild the RAID. This will take some time. You will see the progress in SSA. Once you replace the failed disk, the controller will copy the data from spare back to the replaced disk. Once finished, the spare is a spare again.

[PiterParker]

Hi, 

Yes it is really old machine. I believbbbe if it is active spare it is taking the data temporarily till you will get the replacement drive fitted and than your array will be in healthy condition. 

Please find below as well meybe will help. 

https://community.hpe.com/t5/ProLiant-Servers-ML-DL-SL/How-to-Make-Active-Spare-Part-of-the-Array/td-p/4556311

Regards, 

Piotr

[Mike-Eno]

Hi, thanks for your response. Yes this is an old server. Now I installed the smart storage administrator as suggested and for me, there is less information in that software than the old array configuration manager so getting the status is still a no go. It basically give me the same information, but a lot less information (no physical view, etc...).

So there is no way for me to validate that the spare has integrated the raid and have rebuilt. So I guess my only thing to do here is to change my original bay4 disk and see what happens.

Thanks 

[Torsten.]

last time i checked SSAprovides the same information, but the look is a bit different.

[prewest]

Please post a screenshot here of SSA