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PERC4/DI failed drive in RAID5, how to replace properly?
The other day we found our PE 2600 blinking amber, and Array Manager is reporting a failed drive. This was a 3x36GB 10K RAID5 container. All is functioning, we ordered a replacement, which is a 15K Cheetah, since the 10K's are no longer available. I have it in hand, but here are a few questions:
1) The obvious one: Is there a problem with mixing 15K and 10K? (I sort of know the answer, as we've already had to do it...)
2) The drive in question is no longer blinking with the array, but the drive is also not amber, it is green. I realize from past history and this forum that it likely was a 'soft' fail of some sort, and that just rebuilding the array may work. If so, what is the true, proper procedure?
3) Since the drive is 4 years old, I prefer to replace it anyway, then maybe leave it in as a hot spare. However, I cannot access the 'Prepare to Remove' option from the drive. On left-click, the only options that aren't grey are Rebuild, Online, Blink, Unblink and Properties. What's up with that? How else do I get the drive to spin down?
This is a production SQL server that can't easily be shut down for any amount of time, so the goal is to do all of this without ever restarting. One way we see to accomplish the general goal is to let the old drive rebuild, and use the new drive as a hot spare instead. Better would be to replace it, though, and *maybe* use the failed drive as the spare.
TIA!
amcmis
1) The obvious one: Is there a problem with mixing 15K and 10K? (I sort of know the answer, as we've already had to do it...)
2) The drive in question is no longer blinking with the array, but the drive is also not amber, it is green. I realize from past history and this forum that it likely was a 'soft' fail of some sort, and that just rebuilding the array may work. If so, what is the true, proper procedure?
3) Since the drive is 4 years old, I prefer to replace it anyway, then maybe leave it in as a hot spare. However, I cannot access the 'Prepare to Remove' option from the drive. On left-click, the only options that aren't grey are Rebuild, Online, Blink, Unblink and Properties. What's up with that? How else do I get the drive to spin down?
This is a production SQL server that can't easily be shut down for any amount of time, so the goal is to do all of this without ever restarting. One way we see to accomplish the general goal is to let the old drive rebuild, and use the new drive as a hot spare instead. Better would be to replace it, though, and *maybe* use the failed drive as the spare.
TIA!
amcmis
tommo666
4 Apprentice
•
1211 Posts
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Posted July 5th, 2006 17:00
The disks are hot swap and if you are sure which is the culprit, you can just pull it out. Forcing a failure. Swap the disks in the caddy and put the new drive in.
Make sure you have a full backup first, just to be safe.
Putting a 15k in with 10's is ok beacuse it will be backwards compatible. The problems arise doing it the other way round, putting a 10 in with 15s.