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6
Managing Spares
Chaparral RAID controllers automatically reconstruct redundant (fault-tolerant)
arrays (RAID 3, RAID 4, RAID 5, RAID 50, and mirrored) if an array becomes
critical and a properly sized spare drive is available. An array becomes critical when
one or more member drives fails.
You can set up two types of spare drives:
!
Dedicated—available drive that is assigned to a specific array. See page 6-1.
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Pool—available drive that is assigned to the pool, which can provide a spare for
any failed drive in any redundant array. See page 6-5.
In addition, if you enable the Dynamic Spares option and a drive fails, you can
replace the drive and the controller will rescan the bus, find the new disk drive, and
automatically start reconstruction of the array. See page 6-3.
The controller looks for a dedicated spare first. If it does not find a properly sized
dedicated spare, it looks for a pool spare.
If a reconstruct does not start automatically, it means that no valid spares are
available. To start a reconstruct, you must:
1
Replace the failed drive, if no other drive is available.
2
Add the new drive or another available drive as a dedicated spare to the array or
as a pool spare.
Remember that any pool spares added might be used by any critical array, not
necessarily the array you want
Managing Dedicated Spares
Dedicated spares are unused disk drives that you assign as a spare to a specific array.
The disk must be as large as the smallest member of the array. You cannot use a
dedicated spare drive in an array or as a pool spare.