Constant Consistency Checking

[Ayman Altounji]

Hi all,

We have a ProLiant 6500R with a SMART-2DH Array Controller (4.44) and 4 Compaq (Seagate) 9.1Gb UW SCSI HDD's. The drives are assigned to one array, but split into 3 logical volumes. When this server is sitting idle for more than 30 secs, the drives begin to poll constantly like they are seeking data. They will make noise for about 30 secs, have a break for 5 secs and then do it again. This happens 24x7, but as soon as you access something on the server, they stop until idle again. Obviously this is concerning as it would have to be be putting un-necessary wear on the drive/s, but I can't find anywhere to turn it off?. Initially when I built the server the array controller said something about "Background Parity Consistency Checking" or something, but this seems to have completed because if I reset the server this message no longer appears. Is there a way to disable this "checking" function, or at least change the value so it only does it once a month for instance.

Thanks, Nick.

[Ayman Altounji]

This is absolutely normal and cannot be turned off. What is being done is called Dynamic Sector Repair - the array controller is running tests on the hard disk drives and verifying that they are still in good operating order. COMPAQ supports prefailure warranty on Hdds and this is how prefailure status is determined.