VRTX Predicted Failure drive - how to sort using CMC

Hello

I don't see offline as an option for the Shared PERC. Available storage options should be listed in the Share PERC or CMC manual. Documentation can be found on the VRTX support page.

http://www.dell.com/support/

If you have not performed a consistency check recently then I would run one before replacing anything. If you have the copyback/Auto Replace Member feature enabled then it should automatically copy from the hot spare to the replacement. You can read more about Auto Replace Member in the shared PERC manual.

Personally, I would avoid unnecessary rebuilds and copies. The hotspare exists for times when you are not at the system to perform disk replacement, this is not one of those times. I would disable the hot spare, replace the disk, and then let it rebuild. Once the rebuild starts on the disk you want to be a member then you can set your hot spare back up. If you do it this way then you will only be performing a single rebuild. If you do it using the hot spare then you are going to either be performing two rebuilds or one rebuild and a full disk copy.

Thanks

Thanks for the info.

 

When you say 'replace the disk'  - do you mean just take it out?  If its in predicted fail mode then will the controller know the new one is a different drive and (hopefully) just start to rebuild.

 

 

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@Ant555 wrote:

When you say 'replace the disk'  - do you mean just take it out?

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Yes.

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@Ant555 wrote:

If its in predicted fail mode then will the controller know the new one is a different drive and (hopefully) just start to rebuild.

 

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This behavior should be covered in the controller manual. If the replacement is put into the same slot it should initiate a rebuild automatically.

I have the same problem, in the CMC there is no option to take the disk offline.

I would like to know if it worked just take the disk out and put the new one in its place.

Huckbalboa,

 

 

I believe you should have Force Offline under CMC- Chassis Overview - Storage - Controller - Physical Disks, then under that specific drives drop down. 

 

To answer your question, just removing the old drive from the server (when the drive is online) and the server is on, will run the risk of transferring the bad data across the Virtual Disk. Now if the drive in question is offline, or you have the server powered off, then you can just remove the drive, but would need to power pack up BEFORE you insert the replacement. 

 

Let me know if this helps clarify things.

 

DELL-Chris H,

Thank you very much for answering, in the option of CMC - Physical Disks - Setup, the action to force the disk to offline is not available.

Follow print:

Do you have any tips for making this option available in the CMC?

 

Is everything current on firmware on the system, specifically the controller and CMC?

 

Let me know.

 

 

The controller firmware (SHARED PERC8) is at version 23.14.06.0013.

The CMC (Chassis Management Controller) firmware is at version 3.30

 

Hello huckbalboa,

 

Chris and I talked about this yesterday. Today I contacted a Modular Engineer.

 

For the shared PERC8 you can pull the pred fail drive and replace. No need to offline first. Rebuild should start automatically.

 

Hi Charles R and Chris,

Thank you very much for the reply and for your time, I will do the procedure.

Unfortunately I will take a while to answer the result because the new disc is still in production at Dell, expected to arrive only in March.

Hello,

 

I had the same situation for a few days.

- Predictive failure on a single VRTX disk.

- No button to take disk offline on CMC GUI. (As commented higher in this post, and recommended in the user guide).

 

Today:

Disk in predictive fail state in the CMC

Led Disk alternates between amber/green/Off ( = PFA)

So, we removed the disk from the chassis, then that disk disappeared from the CMC UI

We inserted a new one (same ref), then that disk returned to the CMC UI, and the rebuild started automatically.

 

no stress (in real life, ..., yes)

Hello guys,

Finally the disc arrived, I already made the replacement.

After inserting the disk, it appeared as ready on physical disks.

Now the Global Hotspare option is available.

Now just apply as Hotspare or do you have to do some more procedure later?

Hi Tetsuya31,

Now that I saw your message.

In my case when inserting the new disk, it was as ready.

In physical disk configurations, the option to apply as hostspare appeared.

Hello guys,
I already applied as a global hot spare and everything was ok.
Thanks for the tips given, they were very important to accomplish this task.