SAS HDs with Blinking Lights

[J Will]

I have a HP DL 580 G5 server with 12 146 SAS hard drives. Two RAID controllers

P400 512 MB BBWC PCIe
P400 512 MB BBWC embedded

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First time through setting up, I made the embedded card the primary boot.

RAID Array Setup
P400 embedded:
RAID 1 (2 HDs) for OS
RAID 1+0 (4 HDs) for Logs

P400 PCIe:
RAID 1+0 (6 HDs) for Database

On RAID array with 6 HDs, the hard drive LEDs just kept flashing like christmas lights. Talked to HP support and they want to replace the backplane.

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Since it was going to take a day before support can replace the part, I decided to reinstall everything and reverse my configurations. This time, I made the P400 PCIe card the primary boot and the embedded secondary.

RAID Array Setup

P400 PICe:
RAID 1 (2 HDs) for OS
RAID 1+0 (4 HDs) for Logs

P400 embedded:
RAID 1+0 (6 HDs) for Database

Same result of flashing lights on flashing lights on the big 1+0 Array (6 HDs).

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Now I really suspect it is not a backplane issue. Any suggestions would be helpful. Thanks

J

[juan quesada]

Hi,

wich combination do you have?
http://docs.hp.com/en/J6369-90065/apas02.html?jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN

can you Run an ADU report and attach it?

Regards

[Torsten.]

Are all green?

See the table for all combinations and meanings:

http://docs.hp.com/en/J6369-90065/apas02.html#bhbhehba

Table A-1 SAS Physical Disk LED Illumination Patterns


For the green light:

Flashing irregularly - The disk is active and is operating normally.

[J Will]

Juan,

Thanks for taking the time to assist me with this issue. Here is the information that you requested.

[J Will]

Are all green?

See the table for all combinations and meanings:

http://docs.hp.com/en/J6369-90065/apas02.html#bhbhehba

Table A-1 SAS Physical Disk LED Illumination Patterns


For the green light:

Flashing irregularly - The disk is active and is operating normally.

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I wonder about this because the server has no applications installed except the OS. It is still in the building stage. I have ML 570 with a SQL DB with 300 + concurrent connections and the SAS HDs don't flash as much as the DL 580.

[Torsten.]

I guess the controller is working on this:

Auto-Reliability Monitoring (ARM)

Also known as surface analysis. A fault management feature that scans physical disks for bad
sectors. Data in the faulty sectors remaps to good sectors. Also checks parity data consistency
for disks in RAID 5 or RAID ADG configurations. Operates as a background process.

[Torsten.]

From the user guide:

Why do the activity LEDs light up on some disks when my system is idle?

The controller performs background activities on the drives when the controller is otherwise
idle. For example, Auto-Reliability Monitoring (ARM) scans fault-tolerant volumes for defects
and verifies the consistency of parity data, and Drive Parameter Tracking periodically checks
the performance of drives (normally on an hourly basis).

[J Will]

Also known as surface analysis. A fault management feature that scans physical disks for bad
sectors. Data in the faulty sectors remaps to good sectors. Also checks parity data consistency
for disks in RAID 5 or RAID ADG configurations. Operates as a background process.

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Thanks for these great suggestions. Well this is what I suspected as well, but shouldn't this only happen for a day or so? This has been happening for 3 + days now. A HP support tech came out today and replaced the backplane. After that, even he agreed the HD LEDs are flashing too much. I have DL 380s onsite and they don't do the same constant flashing.

Did you get a chance to look at the ADU report I pulled for Juan? Is there anything in the report that I am missing?

[J Will]

BTW......I have a 5 MB WMV file if anyone would like to see it. I created this video for HP support.