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tinaungsoe
11 Posts
0
167177
September 5th, 2011 22:00
Hard disk failed on PowerEdge 2900
Hello,
One of RAID 5 hard disks in Dell PowerEdge 2900 failed and server has “Dell PERC 5/i Integrated Controller”. RAID 5 was built by 4 hard disks and each has 300 GB. But, logical disk formed by RAID 5 is about 560 GB. According to RAID 5 calculation, the capacity of logical hard disk should be about 900 GB since it is built by 4x300GB hard disks. It seems to me that one of the hard disks in RAID 5 is being used for “hot spare”. Is it correct?
We have “Dell Server Administrator version 4.5.0” installed on that server but it can’t display any information like RAID configuration, hot spare, etc. I am going to install “Dell Server Adminitrator version 5.2.0, A00” which will give more information, hopefully.
I’d like to ask the following questions.
- If one of RAID hard disk is hot spare, is there step by step guide for replacing failed hard disk with new one?
- If there is no hot spare, is there step by step guide for replacing failed hard disk with new one?
Many thanks.
Aung
4496
1
Posted September 7th, 2011 05:00
Hi Aung,
I've discussed this with one of my colleagues and you can also simply remove the failed hard drive and replace with a working one while the server is running and the rebuild should happen automatically - this should result in no downtime at all as the rebuild can take place in the background, however it will have a significant impact on the server performance.
If you would rather take the server offline, you can also do the same rebuild by doing the steps as you have outlined above.
It's very tricky to estimate the length of time it will take to rebuild the hard drive, a conservative estimate would be 3 to 4 hours, but it could take longer than this. If you were rebuilding the hard drive without shutting down the server, the rebuild would take longer.
3918
1
Posted September 8th, 2011 06:00
Hi Aung,
I'm glad to hear that you've managed to replace the hard drive okay. As for identifying whether the new hard disk has been fully built, OpenManage Server Administrator is the tool that would tell you this.
I appreciate that you were having issues with OpenManage Server Administrator 4.5.0, so I would advise you to install the latest version which is 6.5.0 which can be found at the Drivers and Download section of the Support Site here: support.dell.com/.../driverslist.aspx
If you need any help installing OpenManage Server Administrator or have any other problems, please let me know!
4479
0
Posted September 6th, 2011 03:00
Hello,
With “Dell Server Administrator version 4.5.0”, it seems to me that there is option to check RAID configuration and setup. However, even I did "Global Rescan", nothing was appeared. Please see picture below. Can anybody suggest?
Many thanks.
Aung
4496
0
Posted September 6th, 2011 08:00
I don't believe 4.5 is supported on a 2900, so install the latest version for your OS (what OS is it??). There may be minimum Service Packs or firmware required.
4496
0
Posted September 7th, 2011 03:00
Sorry, this is another screenshot.
4496
0
Posted September 7th, 2011 03:00
Hi John,
Thank you very much for your kind information and help. In fact, it is mail server. Today, I restarted the server just to check the status of RAID and failed hard disk via PERC BIOS. My previous assumption as RAID 5 with the hot spare is wrong. Please see the attached pictures and those are screenshots of status on PERC BIOS.
According to information on BIOS, it is RAID 10 with no hot spare. Please correct me if I am wrong.
The following steps would have to be done for replacing failed hard disk.
- Shutdown the server.
- Replace the failed hard disk with new one.
- Restart server and press CLT+R to go to PERC BIOS
- Go to new hard disk and REBUILD by following guide from this link <ADMIN NOTE: Broken link has been removed from this post by Dell>
If there is anything wrong in above steps, kindly correctly me. Would you know how long (estimate time) to REBUILD for new hard disk with 300 GB capacity for RAID 10? Since it is mail server, downtime would be critical for us.
Thank you in advance.
Aung
4496
0
Posted September 7th, 2011 04:00
This is another one. Many thanks.
Aung
4496
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Posted September 7th, 2011 09:00
Just remember ... never shutdown the system to replace a hot-swappable drive - if they are hot-swappable, replace it "hot". If you can access the drive (pull it out) from the outside of the machine, it is hot-swappable ... and even cabled SAS/SATA drives are hot-swappable, but this can be trickier to do without disturbing anything inside.
4496
0
Posted September 8th, 2011 03:00
Hi John,
Thanks a lot for your kind answer and help. I successfully replaced the failed hard disk and it is being built into RAID.
I would like to know how I can identify the new hard disk has been fully built and integrated into RAID.
Many thanks.
Aung
DELL-John C
7 Practitioner
•
353 Posts
4479
1
Posted September 6th, 2011 07:00
Hi Aung,
It sounds from the information that you have given that one of the hard drives was set up as a hot spare. If one of the hard drives was set up as a hot spare, the hot spare disk would have automatically started to rebuild and you would only have to replace the failed drive and assign that as the new hot spare.
To do this, you would follow the steps outlined here: <ADMIN NOTE: Broken link has been removed from this post by Dell>(under Creating Global Hot Spares)
If there is no hot spare, you would remove the failed hard drive and then follow the steps outlined here: <ADMIN NOTE: Broken link has been removed from this post by Dell> (under Performing a Manual Rebuild of an Individual Physical Disk)
I would try the above first before we verify what's happening with Dell OpenManage Server Adminstrator as we want to verify that the virtual disk is back up and running in a fully working state.
Please let us know how you get on and if you need any further help, please don't hesitate to get back in touch!