replacement disk for storagetek/clariion array

[Michael Gracy]

I've been doing a little thinking about this.  One problem is Brandon doesn't mention at what level he is observing the drive status, OS or BIOS (System or controller).  He also doesn't mention if this is a raid 0, 1 or 5, combination or jbod.
I'm going to assume raid 5 here.  If this is an older raid controller, you will probably have to go into the bios for the raid controller and designate that the drive is part of the array and tell it to rebuild the stripe if it doesn't automatically do this.
Another issue might be is whether the drive's geometry/storage size falls short of the others and can't hold it's portion of the stripe.  If the drive is larger than the others, then most controllers will only make use of enough space to match the other drives.
But you can't make use of any of the unused space.  In some cases you have to have a drive that matches the geometry of the others, no allowances.  Before you reboot, make sure as to whether or not you are using hardware or software (OS based) raid.  If it is software based, don't reboot until you've verified that the drive is part of the array and the stripe is rebuilt.  If you reboot you may screw yourself depending on the implementation.  If this is harware based raid, you're probably going to have to reboot thus taking the machine offline unless you have agent software loaded that can talk to the raid controller and accomplish the needed tasks.  Hope this helps.
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: jhoney at flash.net 
  To: baylisa at baylisa.org 
  Sent: Thursday, May 30, 2002 7:17 PM
  Subject: Re: replacement disk for storagetek/clariion array


  I used to work for a computer OEM that indeed ordered 'custom' drives with special SCSI commands built into the drives ROM but such things are pretty rare nowadays because most OEM consumers wised up and pushed back.  The drive mfgrs don't really like this either anyway.  I wouldn't say it was impossible that this drive is a 'special' drive but it is unlikely.  I can't imagine that it would have to come from the Storagetek factory with a special format.  For SCSI that sort of thing (formatting) is usually more in the domain of the controller chip on the bus controller card (i.e., not on the interface chip of the drive like IDE drives).  That was one of the main tenets of IDE.

  I'm just shooting from the hip here but it would seem to me there has to be some utility/capability local on your system to support what you want to do.  Also, using the same model number frive might be a *real* good idea but I am assuming you did that.  Whether Storagetek would ever want you to know how to do this might be the real issue.  Be sure and share the answer if you figure it out.

  Good luck.

  Brandon Yu wrote:

    My array had a failed disk and I replaced it with a off the shelf 18gig fibre scsi disk. Seems like the drive is recognized as being unformatted by the array.
    Does anyone know if I have to buy from Storagetek..something special about the disk?


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