HP StorageWorks 500 Modular Smart Array - Manual (Page 140)

Troubleshooting
HP StorageWorks Modular Smart Array 500 System User Guide D-7
• Spare hard drive configuration guidelines include:
— Always assign a spare to each individual array separately.
— Always be sure that the capacity of the spare is greater than or equal to the
capacity of any drive that it is intended to replace.
— Always be sure that a spare assigned to multiple controllers is of greater or
equal capacity to any drives in that array.
NOTE: Only remove hard drives that have been failed or marked as degraded by the
controller.
If more hard drives are failed than the fault-tolerance method allows, fault tolerance
is “compromised” and the logical drive is failed. In this case, all requests from the
operating system are rejected with “unrecoverable” errors. The section on
Compromised Fault Tolerance later in this appendix discusses possible ways to
recover from this situation.
Recognizing Drive Failure
The LEDs on the front of each hard drive are visible through the front of the external
storage unit. When a drive is configured as a part of an array and attached to a
powered up controller, the status of the drive can be determined from the illumination
pattern of these LEDs. For drive status information, refer to Chapter 1, “Component
Identification.”
Other ways to recognize that a hard drive has failed include:
• The amber LED illuminates on the front of an HP storage system if installed
drives fail. (The LED also illuminates amber for fan failure, redundant power
supply failure, or overtemperature conditions.)
• A controller display message will list failed drives whenever the system is
restarted, as long as the controller detects one or more good drives.
• Insight Manager 7 can detect failed drives locally or remotely across a network.
Additional information on troubleshooting hard drive problems can be found in the
HP ProLiant Servers Troubleshooting Guide.