Flashing LED on SAS drive

[Jim Reinhardt]

Is there a what to reset/clear the predictive failure on an HP SAS drive indicated by the flashing amber LED?

HP said we were getting the indicator due to old firmware in the P400 controller. We upgraded the firmware, took the drive out and reinstalled it into the RAID5. The logical drive started to rebuild, but after about an hour the LED came back on. This has happened with both the original drive and the drive that HP sent as a replacement.

Also, we placed each of the drives into another HP server and the amber LED came on; so I believe either both drives are bad or the status of the drive needs to be reset.

Thoughts???

[Gary Antonio Benavides]

That's correct! An old firmware may cause false hard drives predictive failure. Check the following Customer advisory:

FIRMWARE UPGRADE RECOMMENDED for Certain HP Smart Array Controllers to Avoid False SAS and SATA Hard Drive "Predictive Failures" Caused by Erroneous Monitoring and Performance Data

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?objectID=c01382041〈=en&cc=us&taskId=101&prodSeriesId=428936&prodTypeId=15351

Even though if the firmware was updated and the predictive failure persists you need to replace the hard drives. It could be the hard drive backplane as well, even though there is no way to reseat or clear the predictive failure. If both hard drives are into the RAID 5 make a backup as soon as possible since the array will have to be configure again.

[Jim Reinhardt]

Clarifications:

We only had ONE drive in our RAID5 indicate failure. The 2nd drive I refered to above was the replacement drive HP sent to us.

I took each of these 2 drives (the orginal and replacement) and installed them one at a time into another HP DL server. In both instances, the amber LED came ON. I realize these drives were NOT part of the systems defined array, but the amber LED should not have come on. Am I correct in my assumption?

If I am, then one would logically conclude that these 2 drives (original and replacement) are bad and it is NOT the back-plain or cables, correct or NOT?

[James ~ Happy Dude]

Hello Jim,

1) We assume, that You have restarted the server after the Firmware update.
If not, please do so. Restart => Re-initialize of controller.

2) You are correct, even though the New HDD is not a part of the defined arrays, the Fault LED should not come up.

3) Well, the new HDD could be a DOA; we have seen that in past.

4) If the New HDD is ok, then of course there is no issues with the Cables & "BACKPLANE" ! As you mentioned, you tried this on a different server.

5) If you run an Array Diagnostic Utility & post the report(a notepad file) here or call tech support with the ADU report, we'll be able to see if there are any other faults.

Start > HP Tools > ADU

If you haven't installed ADU, you may get it from web :
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?swItem=MTX-3dea01fc876343d8990f65ba44〈=en&cc=us&mode=3&

:-)

Regards,

[Jim Reinhardt]

OK, here is the latest.

HP sent us a second replacement drive which we received today. When I insert it in bay 6 of our DL580 G4 server, the green LED flashes twice. The first flash is about 30 seconds after install. The second flash is about 60 seconds after install. Right after the second green flash, the amber LED comes on solid.

While leaving this 2nd replacement drive in bay 6, installed the original drive in bay 3, an used bay for the RAID5 array. The RAID5 array is using bays 1,2,5, and 6. The original drive that I installed in bay 3 started FLASHING, not solid, the amber LED.

Then I installed the 1st replacement drive in bay 8, another unused bay for the RAID5 array. It reacted the same way as the original drive in bay 3 with a flahing amber LED.

Then I moved the drive we received today, currently in bay 6, to bay 7. The LEDs acted the same as when it was installed in bay 6, with the amber LED went SOLID after two green flashes.

Then with the original drive in bay 3, the 1st replacement in bay 8, and the 2nd replacement in bay 7, I ran the HP array diagonstics. It reported problems on bay 3 and bay 8 with predictive failures. Remember, these are the 2 drives with flashing amber LEDs. It did not report anything on the drive in bay 7 with the solid amber LED.

Questions:

1. When a drive in a RAID5 array goes bad, does the replacement drive have to go into the same bay?

2. Why didn't the 2nd replacement drive received today not even attempt to starting rebuilding the array?

2. What is the recommended next step?

[Gary Antonio Benavides]

1. When a drive in a RAID5 array goes bad, does the replacement drive have to go into the same bay?
Yes, When the hard drive is inserted the array recognizes the new hard drives and rebuilds the information. If the hard drive is inserted at the wrong location it will be recognized as unassigned drive, becuase of a wrong Bay ID and it will not rebuild.

2. Why didn't the 2nd replacement drive received today not even attempt to starting rebuilding the array?
When a hard drive fails in a RAID 5 the array is no longer in fault tolerant mode. If another HDD develops a bad sector or Read Error the controller will stop rebuilding the array to protect your data.

3. What is the recommended next step?
Run an Array Diagnostic as recommended previously and call HP Technical Support to check on the Array. If there are Bad Sector or Read Errors backup all your data and reconfigure the array and logical drives as they were configure before and restore data from backup.

[Jim Reinhardt]

Question: If you insert an SAS drive into a bay that is not in use by an array, should the green or amber LEDs be ON or flashing if the drive is good?

[Jim Reinhardt]

In addition to my question above, I also have the following questions:

Our RAID5 uses 4 x 72GB 15K SAS drives, model # DH072ABAA6. The latest firmware for these drives is 9B.

I noticed that:
* All 4 original drives have firmware version HPD2.
* The 1st replacement drive sent by HP had firmware version HPD7.
* The 2nd replacement drive sent by HP had firmware version HPD4.

Question: Do all the drives in a RAID5 need to have the same firmware?

[Jim Reinhardt]

Would you believe that HP send us TWO bad drives?

I decided to order a new drive direct from HP. When we installed the drive, the LED first turned solid amber for about 30 seconds, then started flashing green and the array started to rebuild.

After 3 days, the array is still working fine with no errors reported.

The new drive came with firmware version HPD9, the latest version.