replacing a failed SCSI drive in RAID array?

Question

Our Poweredge 2600 has finally experienced a drive failure, and of course I have no spare drive in hand. ( We had hoped to decommission this server prior to a failure, but the server has decided not to cooperate! :emotion-1: ) anyway, the drive is a Seagate Cheetah Ultra U320 SCSI drive. I need to know what criteria are the critical ones for replacing this, since they're not making the ST373453LC anymore. As long as it's 80pin, Ultra U320 SCSI, and as big or bigger, should it work????  If I stick with the Seagate Cheetah line, should I be okay? Can't find any kind of replacements on the Dell store site, did I miss something? thanks.

Daniel My · Accepted Answer

Hello Barbgraj

Yes, what you described should work. Here are the key points on picking a SCSI drive:

Drive size has to be equal to or greater than the smallest drive in the array
- The urban legend of only using the same model and manufacturer of drives within an array was created because of drive size. You may purchase a 146GB HDD from one MFGR that is 145.97GB and another 146GB HDD from another MFGR that is 145.96GB. If all of your drives in the array are 145.97 and you tried to replace one with a 145.96 then it would not allow the drive into the array because the size would be too small.
Transfer rates can differ on drives in an array, but the controller will reduce the speed of all drives to the lowest common speed(U160,U320,etc)
- Make sure that the controller is capable of the speed of the slowest drive
RPM's can be mixed. This will not affect the speed of the other drives in the array, but a slow RPM drive in the array could reduce performance due to the controller waiting on the slow drive to read/write data.

I'm pretty sure that we no longer sell SCSI drives. I know that we do not sell them new, but you can try our spare parts department to see if we have refurbished drives for sale(800 357-3355 or 800 901-3355 ext 7269938).

Thanks

theflash1932 · Answer

Dell's website is hard to shop. I would call your sales rep for pricing and options.

If they don't have drives to sell, you can get Dell drives from many third-party suppliers ... just get a part number and start with Google.

impactcomputers.com/dellparts--parts-for-dell-poweredge-parts-for-dell-poweredge-2600-storage.html

Must be 80-pin, U320, and at least as large as the drive it is replacing.

vnomura · Answer

I was in a simular situation. I replaced a drive with something close. The original was 15K and the replacement was 10K RPM. It was fine. The only thing I noticed is a lowering in performance. The drive was a member of a raid1 array. If the drive isn't compatible, it won't even start to remirror or rebuild.

I would say it's safe to try a "close match" if you have one handy.

Regards,

Victor

barbgraj · Answer

okay, this is what I thought.   Seagate makes a newer version of the drive, the ST373455LC, that I think will do the trick.  Same speed, it's Ultra320 80-pin SCSI.

PowerEdge HDD/SCSI/RAID

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