type 15 controller failure on ps6210xs

hello, 

 If you can take an outage you could swap the good battery from the bad controller to have one 100% good CM until the other one arrives. 

 Good luck. 

Regards, 

Don

Hello, 

 My best guess is yes you have bad memory in that controller.  What is the FW version on that array? 

 Re: Battery.  Is it debleated or giving you a warning?   Usually after the 90% threshold warning the battery has at least 3 months left.  Usually when they are at 0% the controller won't boot up fully. 

 Regards, 

Don 

I had no battery complaints on the secondary after putting the fresh battery in about 1 month ago.    firmware is 9.1.7.  I know there is newer, but it will hard for me to get.   after failback the secondary controller still reports battery is good.   I'm with you, bad ram/controller.      current primary controller has depleted battery and is in write-through mode.  replacement controller for secondary will be here in a few days.  

ALSO,  looking in the Monitoring log I do see, starting about 1 min after restarting to secondary, about 2x per minute "28.2.166 A correctable error has been detected on controller in slot 0 ."  then looks like it finally gave up about an hour later and switched back to the good controller.  

Hello, 

 Yes, make sure you swap the SD cards from the old to the new. The FIRMWARE is on the SD but NOT the configuration.  that would be a horrible design that other vendors in the past have done.  Bad SD cards lead to data loss.  The configuration is stored as part of the RAIDset.  So it is more protected. 

 Regards, 

Don

the other controller is arriving tomorrow.    I think I should be good, right??   when replacement controller arrives I will:

pull out bad CM, put it's fresh battery (from bad CM) in replacement CM and swap microSD from bad CM to replacement CM, then install replacement CM in array.    that's the correct procedure?  firmware and config are on microSD? 

ok, so replacement secondary controller is in.   (swapped good battery and microSD from old/bad controller).  put the controller in, it seems healthy in the GUI.   BUT... I had forgotten to put the SFPs in until after the controller was booted up.    is that ok???     seems like there's no way to confirm if they are healthy.   do SFPs have to be in before bootup?!    should I just pull it out, wait 30sec, put it back in? (or don't bother, it's fine?)   this is the paranoid part of me coming out... 

Hello, 

Re: REV. No, not at all.  

You are very welcome.  I am glad I could assist you. 

 Regards, 

Don 

Hello, 

 The SFTP+ should be hot swappable.  So to confirm your passive has not network connections?  Or are you also using the copper connectors ? 

 Regards,

Don

and do I care that the replacement CM is rev. A00,  (vs. current Primary CM ver A02 ?)     

thanks Don

Both controllers have SFP adapters and are using 10gb fiber into 2 Arista switches.  

just to wrap this up:   I "rebooted" over to the replacement CM last night, went smoothly.   I monitored for the "recoverable errors"...   none.  All good, like we expected just a bad CM (or just bad ram).  Today I'll go in and put the fresh battery in the current CM.  that will wrap up the most dramatic cache battery change ever.  ha!  thanks Don, your answers here are priceless and help keep Dell customers.

Hello, 

 I am so glad it's all worked out!   You are so very welcome and thank you for your kind words.  I truly enjoy helping out here. I've done so for about 15 years and it's not part of my job either.  

 I hope you have a great weekend! 

 Regards, 

Don