Dell MD3000 Degraded Physical Disk Channel error

Hello elhammoud,

When you get the Physical disk channel error what you want to do is to check to make sure all drives are online & present. Are there any expansion enclosures attached to your MD3000? Here are the commands that need to be run:

smcli -n -p password -c "clear allPhysicalDiskChannels stats;"

smcli -n -p password -c "set physicalDiskChannel [1] status=optimal;"

smcli -n -p password -c "set physicalDiskChannel [2] status=optimal;"

If after running the commands you are still getting the error then we will need to review a support bundle from your MD3000. Also looking at your Storage Array Profile log it is showing that your MD3000 firmware could be upgraded to 07.35.39.64.

Please let us know if you have any other questions.

I am having an identical problem.  Is the reset of the error count the actual fix?  Even though the recovery gury says not to attempt to fix this myself, is the command:

smcli -n -p password -c "clear allPhysicalDiskChannels stats;"

what the Dell tech would do to fix this?

Any help is appreciated.

Bruce

Hello Bruce,

When you are getting this issue if you have connection to the drives, then it is best to run the following commands to clear the errors and see if the errors come back again. 

smcli -n -p password -c "clear allPhysicalDiskChannels stats;"

smcli -n -p password -c "set physicalDiskChannel [2] status=optimal;"

Please let us know if you have any other questions.

Those commands cleared one of the errors.  I've tried this one:

smcli -n name -p password -c "set physicalDisk [0,8] operationalState=optimal;"

but the error doesn't clear.  Do I need to wait for it to clear?

Bruce

Hello Bruce,

What you will need to do is to clear the drive stats on both channel 1 & 2.  If that doesn’t resolve your issue then we will need to look at a support bundle to see what is going on.

Please let us know if you have any other questions.

I've run both of these commands:

smcli -n name -p password -c "clear allphysicaldiskchannels stats;"

smcli -n name -p password -c "set physicalDisk [0,8] operationalState=optimal;"

but the error persists.

I don't see an attachment link for the support bundle.  How can I get that to you?

Bruce

Hello Bruce,

I will send you a private message so that you can send me the logs so that I can review them.

Please let us know if you have any other questions.

Thank you for the quick reply. I will swap out the disk and report my findings.

Hello Bruce,

Thanks for the support bundle as it helps to look into your issue. What I am seeing is that the drive in 0,8 is throwing a lot of errors.  It is under the limit to trigger a predicted failure, but it is throwing enough to trigger the channel errors.  What I would do is to replace the drive in 0,8 & that should resolve your issue.  I don’t see an issue with the controller in slot 1 as all other drives can access both channels.

Please let us know if you have any other questions.

While the disk group is under construction, I had a thought. Is there anyway of using a non-Dell certified disk in this SAN? I'm finding it increasingly hard to find Dell certified ones as spares. Bruce

Hello Bruce,

You can’t not use non-Dell drives in an MD3000.  If the drives don’t have dell firmware loaded on them then the drive is spun down and marked as bad.

Please let us know if you have any other questions.

The new disk has rebuilt.  All seems well except for one error in the Recovery Guru:

Individual Physical Disk - Degraded Path
Channel: 0
Related physical disks: (Unknown)

I've tried these commands, but none clear the error:

smcli -n name -p password -c "clear allphysicaldiskchannels stats;"
smcli -n name -p password -c "set physicalDisk [0,8] operationalState=optimal;" (since disk 8 was the problem child)
smcli -n name -p password -c "set physicaldiskchannel [0] status=optimal;"

Ideas?

It did come with its own carrier, but there was no interposer board installed.

Bruce

Hello Bruce,

The drive that you replaced in slot 8 did it come in its own carrier? If it didn’t come in its own carrier, was there an interposer board on the old drive.  If there was an interposer on the old drive did you put it on the new drive?

Please let us know if you have any other questions.

Nor was there an interposer board on the drive I pulled out.

Bruce