ProLiant ML350 G4p One Failed Hot Swap Drive

[Roblen]

ProLiant ML350 G4p One Failed Hot Swap Drive

Redhat EL5 / Raid 5 / Three Hot swap drives / smart array cciss 

Hello, we found one of the three drives had a blinking redish light and was determined that this was a early failour indicator.
We purchased replacement drive . Same as the other two.

Question. How to install this new hot swap drive? .  

Can we hot swap while running or when its powered off?

Will the third drive reconfigure itself on boot ? Or Do we need to inittialize the drive using the the raid array controller.

Thank You in advance for you help

[Oleg Mochkin]

Hi, yes, u can hot swap this HDD -
just plug in to cage.
Rebuild procedure must start automaticaly.
It takes some time.
BR,    Oleg.

[Matti_Kurkela]

If no drive has actually failed yet (= no steady red/amber LEDs), you can just pull the disk with the blinking red LED and replace it with a new one, even while the system is running (that's what "hot-swap" means after all). But if there is an actual disk failure, replace the failed disk first, and after the rebuild is completed, replace the disk with the early-failure indication.

If the SmartArray controller uses default settings, it will automatically start a rebuild once a disk has been replaced. But it is possible to disable the auto-rebuild feature if necessary: if it has been disabled, you'll need to start the rebuild manually using the ACU software (either the web GUI version, or the command-line hpacucli tool).

[Roblen]

Thank you both for your replies.

I am not clear on what I should do. What is the safest way to proceed? Should I just turn off the system then replace the drive and finally turn back on?   Will this then configure the drive on boot? All settings are default with regard to the raid controller.

Lastly, I am not sure what was said about the differences if the drive is failing or has failed in regards to procedure.
The problem drive has the light : Right most led has blinking red with an X thought it with. The left most LED has a blinking green arrow. the middle LED has  reddish / orange blinking

I believe that this is all pointing to failure eminent and do not pull this drive out or data will be lost.

I just don't want to put them out of business so if this should be done on a weekend the please let me know what's best to do.

Thank you again

Rob.