Unsolved
This post is more than 5 years old
2 Posts
0
51514
R710 with PERC6i and RAID-5 Failed Disk, Need to find compatible replacement disk
In my PER710, there are 6 3.5 in. SATA ST3500320NS (a Seagate) 500GB hot swappable drives installed with drives 0 through 4 in a RAID-5 set and drive 5 configured as a hot spare. Drive 1 has failed and the controller has taken it offline. The hotspare has taken the place of drive 1 in the array as expected. The problem is finding the appropriate replacement drive as we cannot seem to find the same drive model available from Dell. An attempt to order a replacement resulted in delivery of a drive with Model WD5003ABYX-18WERA0 (a WD drive) but the back of the drive does not appear to be the same as the back of the original failed drive. I am reluctant to plug it into the array given my (possibly just paranoid) fears that using a drive from a different manufacturer with slightly different specs might not be the best idea. It is also not clear to me that the new drive is actually hot-swap cabable but I'm not sure how to determine that for sure. How should I proceed to find the appropriate replacement drive? Do I need to exactly match the make and model of the original drive? How can I determine whether or not a drive is hot-swap capable?
Thanks.
theflash1932
7 Technologist
7 Technologist
•
16.3K Posts
0
February 11th, 2013 21:00
As long as the disks are "certified" for use on the controller, then the make and model doesn't make any difference. "Certified" disks are loaded with specific firmware for that controller, allowing it to properly respond to any requests from the controller, making the make/model irrrelevant. For this reason, it is also important to make sure system firmware (including disk firmware) is kept up to date.
All SATA and SAS disks are hot-swappable. If disks are accessible from the outside of the machine (like the R710), then the disks can (AND SHOULD) be swapped "hot". Never power down to replace a disk in a hot-swap system.
williato
2 Posts
0
February 12th, 2013 07:00
How do I determine whether or not the Model WD5003ABYX-18WERA0 disk, or any particular disk model, is "certified" for the PERC 6i?
So as long as the disk is "certified", is the same type (SAS or SATA) as the drive to be replaced, and has a capacity greater than or equal to the disk to be replaced, has a "recent" firmware, then things like differing manufacturer, drive speed and amount of cache is not relevant?
Is "cabled" vs. "hot plug" just a feature of the backplane and a "certified" drive will work with either backplane?
Thanks!
theflash1932
7 Technologist
7 Technologist
•
16.3K Posts
0
February 12th, 2013 08:00
All "certified" drives will be Dell branded (will say Dell on the label, together with Seagate or whoever made the drive, with a Dell part number).
The RE4's (RAID Edition) are enterprise-class drives and are suitable for RAID arrays in general, however, I'm not aware of any RE4's being used by Dell for their servers (I could be wrong), but that would mean none of them actually contain "certified" Dell firmware. It may work fine, but if you have issues with that drive - or the RAID array itself - I would look at that drive as the a primary suspect.
"Is "cabled" vs. "hot plug" just a feature of the backplane and a "certified" drive will work with either backplane?"
The backplane is the difference between a cabled and hot-plug/swap configuration ... with a backplane, the drives need not be cabled to power or data connections - they simply are inserted into their slots and the carrier/caddy ensures they connect with the backplane (which supplies all the connections a disk needs). The backplane is just a power/data cable in " board" form and has relatively little logic to it ... certified drives have firmware that allow it to communicate 100% effectively with the controller directly.
"So as long as the disk is "certified", is the same type (SAS or SATA) as the drive to be replaced [SAS and SATA can be mixed on a backplane/controller but cannot be mixed in an array], and has a capacity greater than or equal to the disk to be replaced [smaller by even a few MB, and it will not rebuild], has a "recent" firmware [for best results, as radically different firmware versions "can" affect it], then things like differing manufacturer, drive speed and amount of cache is not relevant? [yes, because they all have firmware telling them to behave exactly the same ... and the disk cache is not used - the PERC's cache is used for write-caching]"
Yes. (However, drive speed matters - it is the speed at which a drive can access its data, which is always relevant to performance, but does not affect compatibility.)