Software and Physical Replacement

^{IBM-AUSTRIA - PC-HW-Support 30 Aug 1999}

Software and Physical Replacement

Software and Physical Replacement

When the ServeRAID adapter communicates with the hardfile and receives an unexpected response, the adapter will mark the drive defunct in order to avoid any potential data loss.
For example, this could occur in the event of a power loss to any of the components in the SCSI ServeRAID subsystem.
In this case, the ServeRAID adapter will err on the side of safety and will no longer write to that drive, although the drive may not be defective in any way.

It is recommended to use a software replace to recover data when multiple DDD drives occur.
In this situation, you may lose data on drives that are not actually defective if you run a normal rebuild process.

Perform a software replace or a physical replace according to the following criteria:

A software replace is recommended when trying to recover data when multiple DDD drives occur.
In this situation, you may lose data on drives that are not actually defective if you run a normal rebuild process.
-Warning- If you use the wrong order when you attempt a software replace, data corruption results.
Perform a software replace also for a single DDD drive when a hot-spare (HSP) is not present in the system and the drive has been marked DDD for the first time.
In such a situation, the software replace requires a rebuild of the drive. During the rebuild, all sectors of the drive are rebuilt. Therefore, the drive is well tested.
If a rebuild of the drive completes successfully, the drive need not be physically replaced.
Replace the DHS drive physically if a DDD drive has been replaced by an HSP.
Under these circumstances, a software replace sends only a start unit command to the drive.
If the unit starts successfully, the drive is seen as good by the ServeRAID adapter.
Restarting a drive does not test the drive sufficiently. Therefore, the drive must be replaced physically to ensure that a good HSP drive is present in the system.

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