How to properly rebuild virtual disks

Question

All, I have a Dell PowerEdge R630 with a Perc H730 controller running iDRAC 8 and have remote IPMI access.  I need to replace all of the drives without downtime and I am struggling to find the correct documentation on how to rebuild these drives.   Here's where I am currently at: 1) There are a total of 3 Virtual Disks, each in a RAID 1 (Mirror) configuration, as each as 2 physical drives, which is a total of 6 physical.  I had 2 free spare slots. (the drives were 0:1:0, 0:1:1,0:1:2,0:1:3,0:1:4 and 0:1:5) 2) I added two new physical drives into the empty slots, they appeared as global hot spares. 3) I could not find a proper process on how to add a global hot spare into an existing virtual, so I finally just had remote hands pull physical disk 0:1:2 from the system.  The hot spare rebuilt but left me showing 0:1:2 was missing from the system. 4) After the rebuilt was completed and logged in storage events, I had remote hands move the hotspare  in 0:1:6 (which had the remote data rebuilt) into the slot of 0:1:2 hoping that it would see the data as consistent and return to a normal state.  However, it detected it as 'Foreign' and tagged it as 0:2: 5) Knowing that was not what I wanted, I moved that hotspare from the physical slot 0:1:2 back to 0:1:6 and tried inserting a NEW drive in 0:1:2. Now I have slot #6 has 0:6 with a state of Foreign.  Slot #2 has a ready disk in 0:1:2, and Slot #7 is my OTHER hotspare as 0:1:7.  My virtual disk 1 is showing as degraded, with 0:1:3 and 0:1:7  Through IPMI/iDRAC8 what is the proper way to move a global hotspare into being actually part of a virtual disk array? Secondarily, how can I get my first global hotspare, which had rebuilt virtual disk 1, back to not being detected as foreign?

DELL-Young E · Accepted Answer

Hello, what I can say is that the only way to accelerate is to stop using and change priorities/percentage.       Respectfully,

jmajor000 · Answer

It looks like virtual disk 1 rebuilt itself. Now I show physical 0:1:2 as online, and my virtual disk 1 as online.  It is now made up of 0:1:3 (original) and 0:1:7 which was my second hotspare.   The first hotspare, which got marked as foreign when I moved it, is still marked as foreign.  And the clean drive I inserted into 0:1:2 is online but not a part of any virtual disk, but its also not marked as a hot spare.   I really need to know the proper process for this.

DELL-Young E · Answer

Hello, thanks for choosing Dell and welcome to our community.   First and foremost, data backup of course   Then Without hotspare remove VD 0:1:0 New disk in Rebuilding remove0:1:1 new disk in rebuild again Then Online Capacity Expansion (OCE)   The video below may help:   https://dell.to/4fpMGjj   How to change RAID Level or Size of a configured Virtual Disk in iDRAC9 and PERC BIOS

John Lynch - L3 · Answer

First and foremost you should never move a disk with data on it to a different slot in a system as it runs a high risk of corrupting your RAID / Data .  As for fixing your 'Foreign drive'  issue, that is easy enough.  Reboot System -> Cntrl+R to enter PERC BIOS, select the controller and press F2 > Foreign Config > Import CTRL+N to enter Physical Disk Management screen to verify status is good.  I laterif  you come across a disk being 'Ready' but not rebuilding Select Disk -> press F2 -> Rebuild to start the process.

DamoA2db022 · Answer

Hi all.... this is the closest chat I have seen so far with my 'issue'. I have recently added a MD1400 enclosure to a R640 server (Perc H840) with 2 x existing MD1400 and a single RAID6 vdisk of approx 350T. The additional 12 x 18T disks I couldn't add in a single operation, but I could successfully add 8 of them (from iDRAC UI). The UI said all complete immediately. Of course that isn't possible. racadm cli telling me that after 10 days the operational state is 'reconstructing' and at 11%. at this rate it will take 3 months to commplete! And then I will want to add the remaining 4 x 18T disks. Is there any way to accelerate the process, e.g. prefer the rebuild to normal i/o? Many thanks for any guidance. Damien A.

DamoA2db022 · Answer

@DELL-Young E​  - thanks for that response. Still took around 3 months for the rebuild and background initialization, but now complete. Next issue is that I can't add anymore physical disks to this RAID6. Currently 31 x 18TB with a global hotspare for a total of 32. I have 4 more 18TB drives in the added MD1400 enclosure but can only use them as spares. Perc H840 Spec says up to 240 physical drives. What am I missing? Thanks.

DELL-Young E · Answer

Hello, sounds like reconfiguration hasn’t completed.- the disks will show when it’s done.   http://del.ly/612140B1hq   Let us know if you have any additional questions.   Respectfully,

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