RAID Help

[atkearns]

Hi All,

I am running a VMWare server currently with 6 VMs. I have an HP Smart Array P410 Controller with 1 logical drive setup and one of my hard drives has an error:

The following disk drive(s) are failed and should be replaced.
Port 1I: Box 1: Bay 3

I have 2 spares HDDs, but everything is running OK still. I wanted to determine the process for replacing & rebuilding the drive. Do I shut everything down & replace? Can I replace whiel VMs are running? Please give me some suggestions, this is probably time sensitive.

thanks,
Andrew

 

[sminlal]

The answer depends on how the drives are physically mounted (the P410 controller is just a controller card - but the actual drives themselves and how they're housed and connected to the system is what I'm talking about). If they're in "hot swap" carriers then you can just pull out the bad drive and replace it with a good drive - the controller should detect this and start rebuilding the RAID set automatically. Most HP storage systems that have hot-swap ability include a failure light on the drive carrier that should make the failed drive easy to identify.

But if they're internal drives plugged directly into motherboard SATA ports then yes, you'll probably have to shut the system down in order to open it up and replace them. In that eventuality you're going to have to be very, very careful to correctly identify which drive is failed. Hopefully whoever set up the system has left some documentation on how to do this. If not, then good luck, and this would be the perfect time to create said documentation.

 

[atkearns]

I definitely have hot-swappable drives.

So does that mean it's OK to remove them while the OS & VMs are running and in use?

 

[sminlal]

Yes, you can remove it with the system up, as long as you remove the one that's failed!

 

[atkearns]

ok im doin it.. pray for me

 

[atkearns]

Yes, you can remove it with the system up, as long as you remove the one that's failed!

Thanks it worked with no problems!

 

[atkearns]

Best answer selected by atkearns.

 

[sminlal]

Thanks it worked with no problems!

Terrific, glad you were able to solve the problem!