Warning Lights On (Dell) EMC CX500 And DAEs

[joeypowell]

Hello guys,

I am an absolute newbie to SANS. I have been tasked with managing our network SAN, among several other key components of our IT infrastructure. I have a couple of problems I'm hoping you can help me out with...

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Problem #1

We have an (Dell) EMC CX500 with 4 additional DAEs. The main enclosure is full of an array of fiber channel drives, with the first 5 from the left (Disks 0-4) being marked with a "Caution" label. The label reads:

Caution: Array Software on drives 0-4. Removing or relocating them Will Make the Array Unuable.

The fourth disk (Disk 3) has both amber and green lights lit. The others have only green lights lit. Also, the "chassis" amber warning light at the top left side of the enclosure is lit.

Obviously it looks like unplugging reseating the drive while the CX500 is powered on might be a really bad idea, so I haven't tried that. I did try completely powering down the SAN and reseating the drive. After powering back up the problem remained.

So, what does this mean? Is the drive bad? How do I fix this?

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Problem #2

On one of the separate DAEs, the chassis amber warning light at the top left side of the enclosure is lit...but none of the drives are showing amber lights. They all have only green lights.

What does this mean? How do I fix this?


We are currently out of service contract, and I'm unable to contact Dell support to get assisstance. So any helpful feedback you can provide will be greatly appeciated.

Thanks for bearing with me while I start to learn about SANS.

 

[theravager]

The san will have a management ip that you can get to with IE that will be able to tell you exactly what these lights mean.

I'm guessing you may have to ask around for the user/password for it thou. I suspect EMC would tell you the one they will have on record without charging you anything.

 

[maultier]

The drive with the amber light has likely failed and should be replaced. The replacement should be done hot (not powered down). Pulling one drive out of the 'caution' zone will not impact the array. It is designed to withstand a hot swap.

As for the DAE, you could have a bad power supply, bad link control card or a connection issue at the back of that unit.
Make sure you have green lights on the back of the DAE. Compare them with a non-faulted DAE. They should be the same.

If you don't have the Navisphere tool, I suggest you get it so that you can review the error logs in the array. That would give you a more definitive answer as to what the error is.

The Dell array is a repackaged EMC product. You may be able to find more information at the EMC website for your product.

 

[mrdenny]

As you have a Dell branded array, Dell does the support. Call them, give them the service tag of the array (there's probably a sticker on the back of the SPs with the service tag) if not someone somewhere should have it. They'll send you a new drive and a guy to install it, as well as figure out what it busted on the drive shelf. This all assumes that your array is still under maintenance with them.

If not you'll need to find an EMC certified disk (people sell them on eBay all the time). Just pull the old disk, and drop in a new one. The system will rebuild automatically.

Don't bother pulling the disk and putting it back in. As soon as the unit sees the disk as bad, it makes it tracks the serial number as being bad so you can't put it back in.

For the other shelf, check the back of the shelf to see what lights on are the back. One should be a warning light that the power supply is bad, or that the controller is bad.

Denny
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