#2 Drive Replacement in a Raid Mirror

[MitelInMyBlood]

I've begun seeing a fault on the #2 drive in one of my RAID MXe systems (9.0.2.18). If I understand the replacement procedure, I have to shut down the entire 3300 controller and pull the affected drive then power-up for 10~20 secs then power down again to clear the registries before I can insert the replacement drive??? That seems like a highly unintuitive requirement for a RAID system where the whole purpose of having a mirrored file system is to avoid having to take a maintenance window for something as simple as a drive replacement. What part of the training did I sleep through?

 

[tlpeter]

You do not need to power down
The drives are hot swappable !
Remove the faulty drive and put in the new drive
If i am right you need to press the button that is for the new drive
But i always check the docs because if you press the wrong one you end up with a empty system

The power down and up is only when you have 2 new drives !

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[kwbMitel]

MIMB, The process you are quoting is for replacing the boot Drive. When 1 of 2 drives fail, the remaining drive becomes the boot drive and the failed drive can be replaced and mirrored without issues.

If, you want to replace both drives you need to clear the Raid first or if you want to move to boot drive from its existing slot to the other slot, you need to clear the raid.

*******************************************************
Occam's Razor - All things being equal, the simplest solution is the right one.

 

[tlpeter]

This is hard to find (i could not) in the technical handbook
The first time i needed to make a raid from a working system i had this issue too and i could not find it

I replaced the drive and did put in the 2 new drives and did the clearing otherwise it will not work

That way i had a working backup drive and two drives of the same manufactor
The only downside was that the system was down for a couple of hours

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[MitelInMyBlood]

Thanks.
I knew about the hoops to jump through to make a raid system, just couldn't find a clear explanation on replacement of a single failed drive.

In the 2K you could partition and try a low-level "LAB 1" format to often times recover a drive. Doesn't look like there's a process to do that anymore (at least not on a running system).

Thanks again

 

[kwbMitel]

I have tried recovering drives a couple of times only to have them fail again. Not worth the time for a $100 drive.

In the 2K days where replacement drives were $$$$$ it was worth a try.

*******************************************************
Occam's Razor - All things being equal, the simplest solution is the right one.

 

[drichter12]

Here are the instructions direct out of the Rel. 9 THB. I have performed the operation only once on an MXe but had no issues and no down-time.


1. If the hard drive is already off-line (normally or faulted) go to step 5.

2. Take the hard drive off-line by using a small pointed object (paper clip).
- Press the mirror control (ctrl) button, for less than five seconds, of the hard drive to be removed.
- Release the button when the Access LED starts flashing once per second.

3. Hard drive is off-line when the Access LED is off and the fault LED is orange.

4. Release the retaining screw securing the hard drive carrier to the controller.

5. Slide the defective hard drive out of the hard drive carrier.

6. Remove the four screws securing the hard drive to the hard drive carrier.

7. Install the new hard drive in the hard drive carrier with the four screws.
Tip: Refer to Table 111 on page 390 for a complete description of LED activity.

8. Slide the hard drive into the controller.

9. Push to seat the hard drive into the hard drive backplane.

10. Tighten the thumb screw.

11. To copy data onto the new drive, press and hold down the Mirror Cntrl button of the new hard drive for between 6 and 10 seconds and then release. Release the button when the Access LED starts flashing twice per second.
CAUTION: If you hold the Mirror Cntrl button down longer than 10 seconds, the hard drives may become corrupt. If you accidentally hold down the button beyond the 10 seconds, continue to hold down the button until at least 20 seconds elapses.

12. The rebuild process is indicated by the Access LED solid green and the Fault LED flashing green.

13. The rebuild is complete when the Fault LED is off (approximately 20G per hour).



Dale

 

[tlpeter]

A little add

Do not make any changes while the morroring is still active !!!
If you do then you will have problems !!!

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