Safe way to test Disk Failure

[warmpapi]

Hi,

We have an Ultra 450 Enterprise server setup with mirrors using Disksuite. I would like to test the mirrors to ensure they are working properly. So for example, if the one disk fails, I would like to make sure the mirrored disk becomes active and comes online. Is there a safe way to test this? Can I just pop out the disk and expect the mirror to take effect and do its job without harming the disk I pulled from the drive? Thanks for any assistance on this.

 

[ianf]

I can't remember if the E450 Disks are hot-plug or not, anyone ?

But otherwise that's the idea. But remember that it will have to go away and rebuild the mirror for many a long hour after you do this.

I'm sure that you wouldn't do this with users connected or jobs going, but just in case it's worth mentioning.

Of course you could just mark the disk as failed from disksuite, or break the mirror, it basically comes to the same thing. Ian

"IF" is not a word it's a way of life

 

[drathbone]

The E450 is fully hot-plug/swap, so you can safely pop-out the disk and let DiskSuite do it's thing.

Like Ian said, you'll be in for a good wait when you put the disk back in, and you'll need to tell DiskSuite to rebuild the mirror (re-attach manually etc..). You can do the rebuilding with users on but this will take a long time and you may get users reporting slow performance.

Is it just data volumes you want to test, or do you want to test the failover for any root volumes ??

Regards,
Darren