Changing RAID Controller Battery on Dell PowerEdge T610

[woreilly]

I have had one of my schools order a new RAID controller battery after OpenManage reported that it had failed. I have found instructions on physically replacing the card, however, those instructions don't tell me whether I need to have the server turned off to be able to do it.

One colleague is of the opinion that if I shut the server down and remove the old battery then I will lose the RAID settings and therefore destroy the data on it. He thinks I should be able to "hot swap" it with the server running. Another colleague's response is "better ask Dell".

 

Has anyone else ever experienced changing a raid controller battery? If so, did you get advice direct from Dell or did you seek instructions yourself? Do you have any sources I could look at?

 

(You can probably tell I've never done it before myself)

[Trojan]

I've done it before... I shut the server down but left it plugged in.. Don't know if this is best practice and YMMV but I didn't lose anything.

[woreilly]

I've done it before... I shut the server down but left it plugged in.. Don't know if this is best practice and YMMV but I didn't lose anything.

 

Left it plugged in as in power or the card into the motherboard etc?

 

The server's hardware manual suggests removing the raid card from the server.

 

http://downloads.dell.com/Manuals/all-products/esuprt_ser_stor_net/esuprt_poweredge/poweredge-t610_Owner%27s%20Manual_en-us.pdf

 

Pages 117 & 118

Edited February 10, 2015 by woreilly
URL to hardware manual

[DMcCoy]

The RAID config is stored on the drives and card, I would shutdown the server and unplug it, drain the last of the power, then change the battery. The BBU is *not* hotswapable, and is used to hold the RAID cache during power failure. You shouldn't lose the config, I have replaced a few in the past without issue.

[Trojan]

Left it plugged in as in power or the card into the motherboard etc?

 

 

As in left the powercord plugged into the server... this will also earth the system.. The RAID battery in mine was not attached to the RAID card though, only via a short cable so there was no requirement to remove the RAID card itself.

[woreilly]

Well...isn't this a b*tch...I came in this morning to fit the part, and in the week since I've been at the school, the fault has cleared and I am now getting green ticks everywhere in OpenManage Server Administrator...