Filter
Top Products
Managing Spares
167
Appendix E
Managing Spares
Using the Disk Array Administrator, you can manage spares.
Rorke Data 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 -168).
• Pool: Available drive that is assigned to the pool, which can provide a spare for any failed drive in
any redundant array. Pool spares are available to both SMs. If a drive in an array on either SM fails,
the Galaxy 65 Subsystem can use a pool spare to reconstruct the array (see page -170).
In addition, if you enable the Dynamic Spares option and a drive fails, you can replace the drive and the
SM will rescan the bus, find the new disk drive, and automatically start reconstruction of the array (see
page 169).
The SM 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.