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January 3rd, 2011 09:00
PowerEdge 2950 RAID controller failure
I have a Dell PowerEdge 2950 running two RAID 1 partitions.
The RAID controller has failed on me and therefore broken the mirror. The server is now running on 1 disk of each original partition.
Is there any way that I can rebuld the RAID without losing the data on the live server? I have another 2950 ready to go with a working RAID controller. The server runs 24/7 and it is impossible to get a large maintenance window. My initial thoughts were to take an image of the current data and simply restore this image onto my other newly built 2950 with working RAID. The downside of this is that I lose data changes between taking the image and getting the restored image server back online.
Is there any way I can shut the server down on it's current configuration and rebuild a RAID array from the current live disks so that it creates a new mirror? ie can I create a new array and it rebuild the mirrored disk from the current disk?
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theflash1932
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16.3K Posts
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January 3rd, 2011 09:00
How do you know the controller failed and not a cable/backplane or drive failure - or even a power event knocking drives offline?
Yes, you can rebuild the drives while the system is live. If you have OpenManage Server Administrator (OMSA) installed, you can monitor the individual disks and can start a rebuild while the OS is running.
You could simply swap the controller (if it is indeed the controller) from the other 2950, then rebuild the drives ... or you could put the drives into the other 2950 and rebuild there. Since the controller would be changing, you would need to Import the configuration from the disks before it would be able to do anything on the new controller.
PhilGT
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January 3rd, 2011 10:00
Just realised that the guy before me has moved the disks into another server. I took over from this fella and the server is in this state. Therefore i have:
- Server 1 - probable RAID controller failure as the server hangs at the starting raid controller bit on bootup. The disks have been removed from this server and put into Server 2.
- Server 2 - as above RAID shows running the two disks from the original RAID mirror set but in degraded state.
- Server 3 - ready to go with new disks and working RAID controller
I assume now all I need to do is actually insert new disks into Server 2 - ie the current setup and it will rebuild the virtual disk arrays. I should really have no need to use Server 3?
theflash1932
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January 3rd, 2011 11:00
When the drives were put into Server 2 and the config imported, it would have brought with it whatever the reason was the drives were not rebuilding. I would first suggest testing the drives that are Failed. If they pass, then rebuild them. If they fail, replace the disks that are failed and then rebuild them. You could also just replace the disks and rebuild them, then test the other drives later. If the drives or slots were faulty, then the new ones should rebuild ok. If it was something else that kept the disks from rebuilding (corrupt array meta-data), then these will fail too.
When you put the new disks in Server 2, they should begin to rebuild automatically, but if they don't, then you will need to start them manually in OMSA.
You should not need Server 3 unless your array is corrupt, then you can use it to begin building it up from scratch.
PhilGT
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January 3rd, 2011 12:00
OK flash, thanks for the advice, much appreciated.
PhilGT
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January 7th, 2011 12:00
One more thing, now I have the two disks in another server and therefore another RAID controller how do I import the RAID config from before to this new controller?
The new RAID controller shows the two virtual disks, both RAID 1. When I click in to each virtual disk there is only one disk there, ie the working one. The RAID 1 status shows degraded but normally you can still see the working disk say in slot 0 and then the degraded disk in slot 1 etc. However in my example each Virtual disk array only contains one disk. The RAID controller failed in the original server so I had to move the disks into an identical Poweredge 2650. The server boots ok but only runs on two disks, not 4.
Is this why I need to import the RAID config from the current disks? Can anyone advise how I do this?