DL380 -R01 Array Splitting

[Adrian Ogden]

Whats the correct procedure for splitting a mirrored pair of disks on a standard DL380R01 using the built in smart array controller?

It only seems to work if a disk is removed whislt running. If the machine is powered down and a disk removed neither disk will work if removed and placed in another machine.

Thanks

[Mark Smith_20]

Adrian,

This really depends on your disk configuration and what you are trying to accomplish. Do you have other drives attached to this array controller? What is your complete configuration? In what way are the drives failing to work?

[Adrian Ogden]

I have two disks mirrored using the built in Smart Array. Partly for redundancy and partly for allowing a quick restore to a previous build state (by taking one of the pair out and keeping it separate whilst playing with changes). Thus if I screw up one of the pair I can put back in an old mirror, boot off it and introduce a new mirror disk (development environment).

When a disk is removed from whilst powered down both disks are marked failed.

[Martin Breidenbach]

This should not happen.

When you remove one drive while the system is switched off and then switch it on you should get a message from the Smart Array controller that it detected a problem and asks what to to. I don't remember the exact message but I believe options are fail the physical drive and fail the logical drive. If just the (missing) physical drive is failed then the logical drive should still be working.

[Marcin Trzyna]

Try this procedure (assuming that you have two disks: disk 0 and disk 1:

Before the tests:
- shut down the server
- remove disk 0
- boot the server. You will receive a message that the drive you removed is not responding. Choose F2 to mark it as failed and continue to boot.

Now perform the tests.

If you want to keep the system as it is after completing the tests do the following:
- on working server hot-plug the drive you removed before. Important: plug it into the same position!
- after the disk spins up, rebuild procedure will start automatically.

If you decide to revert to the previous system state do the following:
- shut down the server
- remove disk 1
- insert disk 0. Important: plug it into the same position it was installed in before it was removed before starting the tests!
- boot the server. You will receive a message that the drive you removed is not responding. Choose F2 to mark it as failed and continue to boot.
- after the server boots up insert disk 1 into the same position it was in during the tests.
- after the disk spins up, rebuild procedure will start automatically.

The very important thing is to keep the disk positions the same during the entire procedure.
It worked for me, I hope this will also work in your environment. Good luck with testing!