Data Domain: Failed, Absent, Unknown, or Powered-off Disk

Summary: This article describes how to resolve the condition where a disk drive is in a failed, absent, or powered off state.

This article applies to This article does not apply to This article is not tied to any specific product. Not all product versions are identified in this article.
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Symptoms

Purpose:

This article describes how to resolve general, single disk failures on Data Domain (DD) systems.

Symptoms:

Autosupport alerts indicating a drive failure, drive removed (absent) or drive powered-off:

  • Event Codes: STORAGE-00001 | STORAGE-00002 | PHYM-00001 | EVT-STORAGE-00002 
  • Enclosure disk has failed and should be replaced
  • Disk has a hardware fault and may need to be replaced
  • Disk is absent and should be replaced
  • Unable to access the disk and the disk state is powered off
  • A disk has failed and the enclosure slot has been disabled

Affected Products:

  • All Data Domain systems
  • All Data Domain Operating System (DDOS) software releases

Cause

DDOS continuously monitors the health of all disk drives in the system.
DDOS automatically fails a drive when certain read/write I/O errors occur.
If a disk is removed (absent), dead, or powered-off, then the associated storage alert is generated.
Disk slots can be powered-off manually (for example, during tech support troubleshooting) or automatically by DDOS (for example, if a disk is causing backend storage issues).

Resolution

Verify and confirm the failure:

  1. Verify the alerts on the system using DDMC, Data Domain System Manager (DDSM | Web-UI), or DD-CLI.
    • DD-CLI # alerts show current
    • DDSM > Alerts 
  1. Identify and confirm the current state of all drives in the system.
    • DD-CLI # disk show state | AND | # disk show hardware
    • DDSM > Hardware > Storage > Disks 
    • Single failed disks should be replaced immediately.
      • Contact your support provider and raise a service request (SR) if one has not been raised automatically.
    • If multiple disk drive alerts exist, contact your contracted support provider for assistance with the next steps.
  • Example: DD-CLI: 
    • sysadmin@DD# disk show state
Enclosure   Disk
             1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10 11 12 13 14 15
---------   ----------------------------------------------
1            .  .  .
2            .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  s
3            .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  s
4            .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  s
5            .  .  .  .  .  F  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  R
6            .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  s
---------   ----------------------------------------------
      > Here we see disk 5.6 (F)ailed > (R)econstructing to Spare disk 5.15
    • Absent disks are marked as (A)
    • Powered-off disks are marked as (P)
  • For DD3300 disk issues, consider this KB:

 

Replace the failed disk:

  1. See relevant documented disk replacement procedures (Data Domain Documentation
    • Tip: Best practice for replacing disk drives should include a one minute waiting period from the time a drive is removed until the new drive is inserted.
      • For example, remove the failed disk, wait one minute and then insert the new disk.
        • This allows the controller firmware to properly remove the old drive before the new drive is inserted, greatly reducing the possibility of a hotplug issue where the new drive is not properly recognized.
  2. Verify that the drive is in SPARE state after replacement.
  • From DD-CLI # disk show state
  • DDSM > Hardware > Storage > Disks 
  • Example: DD-CLI:
sysadmin@DD# disk show state
Enclosure   Disk
             1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10 11 12 13 14 15
---------   ----------------------------------------------
1            .  .  .
2            .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  s
3            .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  s
4            .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  s
5            .  .  .  .  .  s  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .
6            .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  s
---------   ----------------------------------------------
> The newly installed disk becomes (s)pare and the reconstructed disk is now 'in-use'.
 

If the new drive shows up as Unknown:

  1. Attempt a rescan of the one or more drives. Run command # disk rescan
  2. Verify status of drive from DD-CLI # disk show state
  3. Clear the alert for unknown drive from DD-CLI # alerts clear alert-id <alert-id>

If the new drive shows up as failed after a drive replacement:

  1. Attempt to rescan the drive by rescanning the one or more drives. Run command # disk rescan
  2. Verify status of drive from DD-CLI # disk show state
  3. If the drive is still shown as failed (F), run this command from DD-CLI: # disk unfail <encl.disc>
  • For example: # disk unfail 5.6

Clearing the drive alert after drive replacement:

  1. Clear the alert for the unknown drive from DD-CLI # alerts clear alert-id <alert-id>

PowerProtect DD - Replacing Cache Tier Disk on DD6900/DD9400

Duration: 00:02:09 (hh:mm:ss)
Closed captions: None available

PowerProtect DD - Replacing Cache Tier Disk on DD9900

Duration: 00:02:13 (hh:mm:ss)
Closed captions: None available

Reference:

Data Domain - Disk State Description
Data Domain - How to Check Alerts on a Data Domain System
Replacement Procedures: Data Domain Documentation

Affected Products

Data Domain
Article Properties
Article Number: 000043773
Article Type: Solution
Last Modified: 21 Jul 2025
Version:  14
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