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November 7th, 2024 21:19
Replacing Drive In RAID 5 - Disk Reads Offline
I have an older Dell server. I have 6 drives in a RAID 5. One of them failed and according to my co-workers, the drives should be hot swappable. I replaced the drive today and the new drive came online just fine. Just under 30 minutes after plugging the new drive in, the drive went offline. Doesn't read as failed or anything bad, just offline. I've waited a few hours just incase this was part of the process for the RAID rebuild as I have been lucky enough to have to deal with a drive failure yet. Between plugging in the new drive and it going offline, I did put a bit of a load on one of the VMs this server hosts and unsure if that caused the drive to go offline.
My main question is, is there a way to bring the drive back online via the iDRAC SSH CLI or is this just a reset scenario and I just need to un-plug and re-plug the drive to restart the RAID array rebuild?
DELL-Joey C
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November 8th, 2024 04:13
Hi,
Well, you can force online the drive via iDRAC RACADM; ref: https://dell.to/3AGbRhZ. But my suggestion is to find out why the disk went offline. Could it be an incompatible disk.
You will need to check the status of disk when it is offline, probably it is in foreign state. Is the drive new? Is the drive a Dell drive? Can you provide me the DPN# if it is a Dell drive.
Also, tell us more about the 6 existing drives specification, what PERC are you using, what server model. The drive replacement, what is the specification.
Mr_monkeymonkey
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November 7th, 2024 23:20
Decided to un-plug and re-plug the drive. Same thing happened. Drive came online and read online, then appeared offline. Still researching but thought I'd give an update.
Mr_monkeymonkey
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November 8th, 2024 17:33
@DELL-Joey C That is one of my theroys is that the drive isn't compatible. It is not a Dell drive. It is a Seagate, 600 GB, 10K RPM, and 6 Gbs read/write. This is the same spec for each of the other drives. Can't confirm brand for other 5 sadly. This drive I believe is new, chance it is refurbished.
Server model is a PowerEdge T320. PERC is a H710.
DELL-Chris H
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November 8th, 2024 17:41
Do you happen to have the part number of the drive, or a picture of its label, we may be able to cross-reference it to see if it is compatible or not.
Also, are you seeing anything in the lifecycle log around the same time as the occurrences?
Mr_monkeymonkey
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November 8th, 2024 23:17
@DELL-Chris H Sadly I don't have the exact part number at this time. For the lifecycle log, when the drive goes from online to offline, it says to either force it online or mark it as a hot spare. Tried find commands to force the drive online but I have come up empty handed. I plan to access the RAID controller tonight to see if I can manually set this new drive to the array if it hasn't already.
DELL-Joey C
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November 11th, 2024 01:18
Hi,
You can refer to the documentation that I've provided to you on my first reply. It's the RACADM to forceonline drive. Before doing that, yes, it is better to check in RAID controller what happen to the drive, it could be in foreign state. Update us.
Mr_monkeymonkey
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November 11th, 2024 01:53
@DELL-Joey C The RACADM commands don't apply to my iDRAC with it's current firmware (I believe that is the issue). I decided to restart the ESXi host and from doing that, I was able to force the drive online and start the RAID rebuild via the GUI. Otherwise the RACADM commands for that would have worked perfect.
After that, the ESXi OS itself decided to have faults too. Re-installing ESXi got me to where I am going but now when I re-add the VMs from the datastore, they show up as Unknown (inaccessible) so now I am toying with that.
I'll mark this as good for now since the initial issue is taken care. I'll make another post if I need too. I appreciate the help from both you and Chris.