Server Administrator Storage Management 8.2 User’s Guide

The SAS 6/iR controller enables you to assign two global hot spares. The controller firmware remembers the hot spare assignment even after the physical disks that you assigned as hot spares have been removed. In other words, in the case of a disk removal, the firmware may assume that a hot spare is present when it is not. In this case, the firmware may prevent you from assigning a new global hot spare as the firmware assumes that a global hot spare is already assigned.

When a physical disk fails in a redundant virtual disk, the failed disk is rebuilt onto the hot spare. In this case, the controller firmware reassigns the slot containing the failed disk as the hot spare. In this circumstance, a disk not previously assigned as a global hot spare becomes a hot spare through failure or removal.

To ensure that the controller firmware always has a healthy physical disk as a global hot spare:

• Unassign the hot spare that is assigned as a global hot spare before removing and reassigning a physical disk that is assigned as a global hot spare, unassign the hot spare before removal and reassign another physical disk as the global hot spare.
• Immediately replace any physical disk that has failed or been removed. This ensures that a healthy disk resides in a slot that the controller firmware assumes is a hot spare.