EVA - HDD Replacement while leveling?

[Juan Canjura]

Hi all,

I have an EVA-5K running at full capacity: "Disk Failure Protection= Single" and "Alarm level=100%". I know is not even close to a recommended configuration but I have to deal with it for a while.

Now I have a failed drive and the leveling process will take a while to complete.

My question is: Is it safe to replace the failed drive during the leveling process or do I need to wait for the leveling to make the replacement?

Thanks in advance

Juan

[Rob Leadbeater · Accepted solution]

Hi Juan,

Yes you should be OK to replace the failed drive whilst levelling is happening.

Having an EVA running with the alarm level at 100% isn't necessarily bad... I've had to do this before. Remember 1% of a fully loaded EVA with 300GB drives can equate to a lot of disk space. The best practice is to leave at least 5GB free in the disk group.

Hope this helps,

Regards,

Rob

[IBaltay]

Hi,
there are several factors that should be taken into an account:
a) the protection level=spare drives.
b) the firmware
c) alarm level (disk occupancy treshold)
d) drive ungroup
The d) is the most important.
The drive ungroup means that the disk is excluded from the Disk group and its treated like a standalone disk by the controller.
The leveling means that the controller is redistributing the rest of the virtual disks in the disk group across the N-1 disks (1 has failed). These 2 processes are independent, so you need not wait for the leveling to be completed to replace the failed disk.

[Juan Canjura]

Thank you both for your reply,

So if I change the failed drive[s] while the EVA is leveling, the leveling will take that "new" free space (the one from the newly replaced drive) immediately or it will finish the leveling and then restart a new leveling process to use that "new" space?

Thanks again,

Juan.

[IBaltay]

Hi, it will restart the leveling

[IBaltay]

Hi,
one additional info:
as I have said, the ungroup and leveling operations are 2 separate operations. However in cases of the free space shortage, the leveling process has the priority to redistribute first the rest of the disks and then it lets the disk to be ungrouped. Until then it is blocking the ungroup operation

[Juan Canjura]

Thank you very much for your replies.

Juan

[Juan Canjura]

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