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question on Integrated Netraid on Netserver LH6000

 
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james glass
Advisor

question on Integrated Netraid on Netserver LH6000

I have an integrated netraid on my netserver lh6000, and it's driving me crazy.
I recently replaced 7 of the hotswap drives with faster drives... the drives caused the system to completely hang on boot. Somehow while monkeying around with netraid express tools, I created an additional logical drive.

Turns out the new drives just won't work with the netserver (long story-- bad ebay purchase, guy slapped a seagate label on a non-name non-hot swap crappy scsi drive) pulled all the new drives and went back to the old drives.
Now, I still have that third logical drive I created. Also, two of the physical drives are showing up as "online" and attached to an array, but the capacity of the array does not reflect this.

So right now I have three logical drives. The first is my os, with three physical drives in a RAID 5 config. I obviously would like to keep this one.

The second logical drive shows up in netraid express as including the remaining 7 drives. However, its capacity is only equal to five drives (Yes, I accounted for loss of one drive due to raid 5 config).

The third logical drive shows up as the proper capacity if it contained all 7 physical drives, but is inaccesable (can't even initialize it).

I would like to do the following: (1) delete the third logical drive; (2) restructure the second logical drive to include all the remaining 7 drives and (3) without disturbing the os array. I don't care if I loose all the data on the second logical drive; the data is fully mirrored on an external drive system.

Thanks!
help!.
5 REPLIES 5
Sean T. Craig
Honored Contributor
Solution

Re: question on Integrated Netraid on Netserver LH6000

Hi James,

This should be pretty simple. It involves clearing the configuration and then recreating the arrays using the same configuration parameters. As long as you DO NOT initialize the array, all the data will be left intact.

If the data on the second logical drive is compromised, then initialize THAT logical drive, partition/format and restore from backup.

If you're not comfortable with the recreation process, post your full config. Include which drives are on which SCSI ID and it's array name and I'll post a step-by-step.

Start by making sure all the drives are error-free and record the logical drive properties.

Best of luck,

Sean T. Craig Sr. C.E.T., M.C.P.
I am King...of my apartment.
Sean T. Craig
Honored Contributor

Re: question on Integrated Netraid on Netserver LH6000

Oh, one last thing; HP still offers free phone support on the LH6000. If you call 1-800-474-6836 and say "Netserver" at the prompt, you can get professional assistance at no charge.

Ciao,
Sean
I am King...of my apartment.
james glass
Advisor

Re: question on Integrated Netraid on Netserver LH6000

ok-- I have no problem doing that.
so if I "clear" my configuration, and then recreate the os LD in exactly the same way it is, I won't loose any data from that LD?
Sean T. Craig
Honored Contributor

Re: question on Integrated Netraid on Netserver LH6000

Hi James,

That is exactly right. Unlike the 4M, all the other HP NetRAID Controllers allow you to create the array properties on the controller without scrubbing any data. What this means is that you tell the controller which parameters to use to access the data that already exists on the array. The only thing that changes on the hard drives is the scratch pad which is a backup copy of the configuration.

Here are the possible conditions that could exist:
1. When the NVRAM on the controller matches the scratchpad information, the server boots normally.
2. If the NVRAM is clear but there is an existing configuration on the scratchpads, the controller imports it into memory.
3. If the information in NVRAM doesn't match the scratchpad, you get a configuration mismatch between NVRAM and Disks.
4. Lastly, when the scratchpad on one drive is different than the other drives in the array, you get an Unresolved Configuration Mismatch.

It is the process of initializing an array that will wipe it to prepare it for use. This step is important if you are using drives that had a different configuration on them before.

Let us know how it works out,

Sean T. Craig Sr. C.E.T., M.C.P.

P.S. Please encourage participation in the forums by assigning points to rate the responses.
I am King...of my apartment.
james glass
Advisor

Re: question on Integrated Netraid on Netserver LH6000

ok.. I'm going to try it tonight.
I also have another question posted on drives in this forum... bonus points if you can answer that one as well!