adding hot swap drive

[scisysstephen]

i reformatted my netserver as i had a bad disk
i backed up everytthing reformatted and it is working fine again. i have 5 drives in a RAID 5 array.
i want to know now can i add another disk now as a hot swap device incase it happens again.

as how do i run the consistency checks through windows.
tx guys

[Ivan Ferreira]

Is this a hardware RAID? In that case you can add spare disk using ACU:

Click Spare Management, and then click Begin.
Select the array that needs to have spare drives added or removed.

Select the drives that you want to assign as spares, and deselect the appropriate
checkboxes for spares that you want to remove.

Click Next.

Click Finish to accept the changes.

Click Save, and then click OK on the confirmation

In a RAID 5 configuration, you should not loss any data if a disk fails? Why did you reformatted everything?

[stephen_170]

what is acu.

can i do this through windows 2000
it is a netserver lh3000
with a h/w raid

[stephen_170]

i had a failed disk but when i put a new one in it failed aswell. it would fail at about 90% of rebuild.

i did not lose data but i could not get array back up properly so that is why i backed up and reinstalled

[Ivan Ferreira]

See:

http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/servers/proliantstorage/software-management/acumatrix/index.html
http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/servers/proliantstorage/software-management/acumatrix/sw-drivers.html

[Torsten.]

@Ivan:

Netservers doesn't have or support SmartArray controllers. They have Netraid 1m to 4m - totally different.

Depending of the type of netraid controller the utility is different. What kind of controller do you have?

[kris rombauts]

Hi Stephen,

not specified in your post, so assuming you use the embedded Netraid controller in the LH3000 or a 1M/2M and not a Netraid 4M card as the hardware raid controller, pls folluw the steps below:

- to avoid running into the situation you have had before whereby a raid array could not be rebuild again (i.e rebuild fails at 90%) you should install the Netraid monitor service which periodically (default is once a week) performs a redundancy check.

So pls install this monitor service :

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=15351&prodSeriesId=50440&swItem=ns-12644-1&prodNameId=62575&swEnvOID=226&swLang=13&taskId=135&mode=4&idx=0

This will minimize the risk that when a disk fails, the rebuild fails because one of the other 'good' disks in the array has a bad spot and as such the raid5 stripe cannot be rebuild. It would have been good if you had checked the raid.log file and noted the disk id which reported the error during the rebuild ,such that, when this disk causes trouble again in the future, it can be replaced pro actively.
A disk can have media errors but not be flagged as failed by the controller, reformatting like you did now can help but only time will tell.
Again, the consistency check will catch those situations and correct the raid 5 stripe if it can or log an error on a particular disk so that you are aware. Those errors are copied in the Windows eventlog file.

- To answer your initial question about adding a 'hot swap' drive, i guess you mean 'hot spare' drive to use the correct terminology here. Whenever a disk fails in the array, this hotspare disk will automatically kick in and the array rebuild will start onto that hotspare disk so that the raid5 becomes redundant again.

You can do this online using the Netraid Assistant utility, available here:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=15351&prodSeriesId=50440&prodNameId=62575&swEnvOID=226&swLang=13&mode=2&taskId=135&swItem=ns-12645-1

Pls note that the presence of a hotspare disk does not guarantee you that a future disk failure will succesfully rebuild, it just helps to quickly rebuild the array again, instead of having to wait till someone manually removes a failed disk and inserts a new one. But a hotspare together with a consistency check really minimizes the risk of a unsuccesfull rebuild.


I advise you also have a read here :

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&taskId=115&prodSeriesId=62471&prodTypeId=329290&prodSeriesId=62471&objectID=tis08928

It provides a very good help for every feature you want to use in the Netraid Assistant utility, including how to add a hotspare disk.


HTH

Kris

[stephen_170]

yes it is the onboard netraid controller.
i have installed the monitor service and will use.

now
i have put what i want to be the hot spare into the server. the two green lights come on. power and hd access which both stay on constantly.
i open netraid asst latest version but i don't see the drive in it. it does not appear to see i have inserted the drive.

when i run a scan it crashes on one of the channels. channel 0 id 9 lun 0

i will do through the ctrl-m option at bootup to see if it picks up the hard drive

[kris rombauts]

Stephen,

this is not normal, only one disk led should be on. It looks like this disk is bad or cannot spin up for some reason, this then typically hangs the Netraid Assistant during the bus scanning on that particular SCSI id.


Chances are real that you will face the same issue off line in Express Tools (CTRL M) after a reboot.
If you do plan this anyhow, i'd prefer a power off, then power on to reset everything 'cold'


Kris

[stephen_170]

i agree
i think the disk is bust
when i went into netraid express tool when i tried to do anything with it it just said
drives not responding can't be selected.

i could do nothing with it
1 last question before i return it
i don't have to format the drive before i make it hotswapable

tx everyone for your help
stephen

[kris rombauts]

Hi Stephen,

no need to format a disk whatsoever, this disk is just bad, return it.

regards, Kris

ps: Don't forget to assign some points to those who helped you with your problem in the forum.

[stephen_170]

how do i give points
i am using firefox but don't see the drop down points to give the points

[Sean T. Craig]

Steven,

You can only assign points to posts you have authored yourself. When you originally created the post, you were logged in as scsisteven. You will only be able to assign points if your are logged in using that account.

Good luck,

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