Test spare drive in RAID 5 - ML350G6 i410 controller

[Eppie252]

Need to get a few more months out of an old ML350G6 which we will be replacing this year.  I bought new HDDs to replace the aging drives (500GB SATA) and I first swapped out the spare drive in a 4 drive RAID 5 array.  It normally takes an hour or two to rebuild the array when I replace a faulty drive, but when I replaced the spare, the LED started orange, then flashed green for 10 or 20 seconds, and then turned off.  No more flashing green to show that the array was rebuilding.  I connected to ILO remotely and it reconginzes the new drive and has the correct drive model number but I don't know if the array is functioning properly.  I don't want to start swapping the other drives and find out that the spare is not rebuilt and then have the array fail.

• What is the safest way to test that the spare is functioning properly?
• Should I shut the server right off, remove one of the other active drives and then see if the system boots?
• Will the system boot with just 2 drives and the spare inserted?
• If the spare is not rebuilt, will the attempted boot be non-destructive and just report an error on post?

[Cali · Accepted solution]

The Spare Drive is an Offline Drive with no Data.
It goes Online for recovery if a Data Drive fails.
This is different from a Parity Drive.
So if this was a Spare Drive, everything is as expected.
In this case, you have R5 with 3+1 and additional Spare Drive.

Assuming there is a data backup, I usually do it like this:
Pull out a disk during operation and replace it with a new one.
Wait and check until the rebuild is finished, then the next one, and so on until everyone has been replaced.
So far it has always worked well for me.

Cali

[Eppie252]

Thanks Cali.  The system has 4 drives total, so RAID 5 2+1 plus the spare.  I thought the spare was a parity drive as well but good to know that it sits idle and I can safely remove the other drives to upgrade.  Thanks for your time.

[Sunitha_Mod]

Hello @Eppie252,

Perfect! 

We are glad to know your concern has been addressed. 

[Eppie252]

Yes, I replaced the drive in the first bay last night and it rebuilt the array overnight and is functioning normally.  I have two more drives to replace and then I can start researching a replacement system and finally retire this old server.

I must tip my hat to HP for making excellent hardware.  We purchased this ML350G6 back in 2010.  Over 14 years I have only needed to replace the power supply once (it still functioned but was making noises, with potential for failure).  I've had a spare power supply sitting on the shelf for years and never needed it.  We expanded the memory after a few years and the only regular maintenance has been replacing the HDD when ILO reports too many errors.  Rock solid and reliable hardware.