Raid Problems

[dave.81]

Right ver ynew to raid this is the first setup i've done and it's on our accounts server so it's slightly important.

It's a Dell Poweredge 2900 with 4 70gb SAS drives. 3 running in raid 5 with the 4th as a hot spare. Yesterday i noticed that the lights to 1 of the 3 had gone out... odd i thought so running through the logs it's been like that for a week with the hot spare now running as the 3rd in the raid config.

I took the faulty one out and replaced it and the lights have now come back on. All the raid setup/server admin are calling it a foriegn drive and i cannot do anything with it. Is my next step phoning dell for a replacement? Or is there something else i should check first?

[djm968]

What did you replace the faulty drive with? Sounds like the server is not recognising the replacement drive.

I can’t remember if there is an option in the RAID config or server manager to import the drive, but its worth a look.

[dave.81]

I just replaced the faulty drive back into the slot and it light up again like it's working. Just taking full backups of the server incase another drive goes.

[mattx]

Is there an option to set the drive to defunct ? Or Something similar ?
I used to get a similar problem with IBM servers many years ago - I would set the drive to defunct - [ after I noticed it was knocking out parity errors ], then pull it out - [ Oooooerrrr ] and then put it back again and use the software to re-bulid it.
If the drive failed again - I would then set it to defunct and replace it, again using the software to re-build. Most of the time the raid would automatically re-build it anyhoo....

[dave.81]

I have tried all that just now Mattx, i'm worried it's a dodgy controller as i moved the working hot spare into the faulty drive's slot and it stopped working. Moved the fault drive to the hot spares slot it worked. Time to ring dell and sort out a replacement controller/drive i think.

[mattx]

Nice bit of PD Dave - I think a new controller should sort this.
I don't suppose you have another server with a similar setup that you can stick that hot spare in just to confirm ?

[dave.81]

Nope tis our only server with SAS drives unfortuantly so am stuck with testing in another one... Dam things moving forward lol...

Now just waiting for it to rebuild a drive before i boot it back up, finance are complaing it's down, they dont seem to understand on the last server if this happened they'd have been without for a week.

[DMcCoy]

When a hot spare comes online, does the failed drive no longer belong to the raid set though? otherwise you will have an extra disk when you replace it. Just wondering - don't have many failed disks!

[dave.81]

I have no idea being very green about raid. I'm in the controllers config utility it lists the drive as foriegn and i do not have any options apart from making it blink. Will brave dell support i think :P