PERC 6/i says SAS array (6 disks in RAID-5) degraded. One of the six disks is "Ready". I want to replace it.

Hello.

The sixth disk shows "Ready". (System, Storage, PERC 6/i Integrated, Connector 1 (RAID), Enclosure (Backplane), Physical Disks) This disk is a Dell-branded disk; it has slightly less space than the Fujitsu disks (136.12 GB vs 136.38 GB).

What is the status of the individual 5 remaining drives? Did you replace any of the drives?

The alert log shows that this sixth disk was unassigned as a global hot spare (?!) and was cleared.

It is likely that the hot spare attempted to kick in following a failed drive and becuase it did not automatically rebuild, it reverted to a "READY" state. Under Available Tasks, assign this as hot spare and monitor the status of the Virtual Disk (VD)

What I can't do: Replace a member disk in "SAS Array", because it says "no disks are available".

The Replace Member functionality allows an assigned hot spare to revert to a usable hot spare after a failed drive has been replaced and VD restored to optimal state. The VD is still degraded and this will not work.

What I'd like to do: Remove the sixth disk, and replace it with a Fujitsu disk. I have spare Fujitsu disks on-hand.

Try the hot spare option and see what happens.

What is the status of the individual 5 remaining drives? Did you replace any of the drives?

It is likely that the hot spare attempted to kick in following a failed drive and becuase it did not automatically rebuild, it reverted to a "READY" state. Under Available Tasks, assign this as hot spare and monitor the status of the Virtual Disk (VD)

Well, that's part of the problem. It wasn't a hot spare before . . . whatever happened happened. And it's not a hot spare now. It was the sixth drive in that RAID-5 array. I know that for three reasons.

1. I documented it when I started working here.
2. Since OpenManage Server Administrator reports noncritcal state (not "ok" state) for all the Fujitsu drives, I look at them through OpenManage Server Administrator literally every day to see if I have a drive failure.
3. The total disk space for that array is 681 GB. You have to have 6x136GB drives to reach 681 GB in RAID-5; 5x136GB is only 544 GB total drive space.

Try the hot spare option and see what happens.

I got a warning, which I expected: "This Physical disk is not suitable to protect all current or potential virtual disks on this controller . . . " I assigned it anyway. "SAS Array" still shows "degraded". It's not rebuilding.

Otherwise, replace the drive with another of similar specifications and capacity.

Since it doesn't appear to be part of the RAID-5 array now, and since there are no drop-down options that will tell the PERC 6 that I'm going to remove the drive, then it's safe (for the RAID array) to unassign it as a global hot spare, and then just yank it out, right? (The only options are blink, unblink, and unassign global hot spare.)

...it's safe (for the RAID array) to unassign it as a global hot spare, and then just yank it out, right?

Well, that's what I did, and it did no harm. But PERC sees the spare drives as Dell-branded, and 136.12 GB capacity. I have several spare drives; PERC sees them all the same. The RAID-5 array won't rebuild with these drives. I presume that's because of the slight difference in reported capacity: 136.12 GB vs 136.38 GB.

I think I'm going to have to buy some 300 GB, 15k drives to replace these. I'm still trying to understand how the first drive could have ever worked in the RAID-5 array in the first place. I suppose in theory somebody could have replaced a failed Fujitsu drive without telling me, but if they did, they didn't replace it with a drive from my spares--those are all accounted for.

Run offline diagnostic on this drive, it may be faulty. Otherwise, replace the drive with another of similar specifications and capacity.

More below, but I'm going to try to get hold of a couple of 300 GB, 15k SAS drives from serversupply.com. I think the main difference--besides capacity--is that the 300 GB drives can run at 6 GBPS.

I tried a bunch of spare Fujitsu drives. PERC sees them all as Dell-branded, and all at 136.12 GB capacity.

The PERC 5/6 are 3Gbps controllers ... so while you "can" use 6Gbps drives on it, they will negotiate down to 3Gbps.

If the 300GB drive will let the array rebuild, I'm happy to let it negotiate its heart out. I should have one in a couple of days.

Any idea how the original configuration could have ever worked in the first place?

I replaced the Dell-branded Fujitsu drive with a larger (30- GB) Fujitsu drive, and the array rebuilt without me doing anything else. So, success!

What I still don't understand is how that Dell-branded Fujitsu drive could have ever worked in that array.