Urgent: Replacing Failed RAID card

Forums › IT Pro and developers › Urgent: Replacing Failed RAID card

Zeon

3409 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 404

Trusted

Topic # 127101 30-Jul-2013 08:44

Hey guys,
I have a failed RAID card (LSI 9266-4i) with about 30 drives in various arrays. It doesn't show up in BIOS as a boot option nor does its own BIOS show when the server boots. I have a spare in my backup SAN but I'm worried that taking that will potentially mean I lose my backups! Anyone had experienced with this situation and importing drive arrays? Both cards are identical.

1 | 2

2442 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 720

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

Reply # 868306 30-Jul-2013 08:45

First thoughts: Ring the vendor. Bugger the cost.

"4 wheels move the body. 2 wheels move the soul."

“Don't believe anything you read on the net. Except this. Well, including this, I suppose.” Douglas Adams

Inphinity

2522 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 937

Subscriber

Reply # 868310 30-Jul-2013 08:50

One person supports this post

I presume the one in your backup SAN is actually in use, and is used for your backups? If so, I would not use it for this - doing so would put the integrity of your backups at risk as well as your primary SAN (unless of course you have an additional tier of backups you can use if the backup SAN array died during this too). That controller isn't that old, so you should be able to get hold of another identical. I haven't done an array config import with that controller, so can't really comment on how well it handles it, sorry. But just don't put your backups at risk, as you could potentially lose both data sets...

Windows 7 x64 // i5-3570K // 16GB DDR3-1600 // GTX660Ti 2GB // Samsung 830 120GB SSD // OCZ Agility4 120GB SSD // Samsung U28D590D @ 3840x2160 & Asus PB278Q @ 2560x1440
Samsung Galaxy S5 SM-G900I w/Spark

rhysb

431 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 7

Trusted

Reply # 868322 30-Jul-2013 09:25

I've had to import foreign configs with other LSI cards and it works fine. It gives you an option to import the foreign config and verify it's setup when it detects the drives.

ubergeeknz

3343 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 1089

Trusted

Vocus

Reply # 868355 30-Jul-2013 10:04

It should work OK. Just be very cautious.

Zeon

3409 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 404

Trusted

Reply # 868368 30-Jul-2013 10:48

Thanks for the advice guys. Didn't have time to muck around with the vendors, saw some posts that people had imported fine and spoke with a colleague who had done it with LSI cards. Tried it and it worked great, picked up all the drive groups, spans, even cachecade. Now time to get a replacement card for the backup SAN!

Definitely felt risky putting backups at risk but gotta take a chance sometimes

1080p

1332 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 152
Inactive user

Reply # 868377 30-Jul-2013 11:11

heh, it might be time to consider an upgrade to a ZFS array.

Mark

1360 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 345

Reply # 869194 31-Jul-2013 11:45

One person supports this post

1080p: heh, it might be time to consider an upgrade to a ZFS array.

He'd want a proper storage array surely ? ;-)

gjm

747 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 91

Reply # 869261 31-Jul-2013 13:04

Zeon: Thanks for the advice guys. Didn't have time to muck around with the vendors, saw some posts that people had imported fine and spoke with a colleague who had done it with LSI cards. Tried it and it worked great, picked up all the drive groups, spans, even cachecade. Now time to get a replacement card for the backup SAN!

Definitely felt risky putting backups at risk but gotta take a chance sometimes

Well done...makes me nervous just reading that though. Yeah get that replacement card...you've tee'd the ball up for Murphy nicely and he really likes to hit it hard.

[Amstrad CPC 6128: 128k Memory: 3 inch floppy drive: Colour Screen]

Zeon

3409 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 404

Trusted

Reply # 875476 11-Aug-2013 20:27

OMG just had ANOTHER fail. I managed to borrow 2 while the others are shipped so one replaced this one and the other I will put into the backup SAN. Seriously has anyone seen a failure rate like this?

gjm

747 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 91

Reply # 875488 11-Aug-2013 21:16

wow....thats not what you need on a Sunday night. Could be a coincidence but one more any time soon and I'd start being seriously worried

[Amstrad CPC 6128: 128k Memory: 3 inch floppy drive: Colour Screen]

Dynamic

2442 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 720

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

Reply # 875494 11-Aug-2013 21:27

Firmware issue perhaps? Are the cards running the latest?

"4 wheels move the body. 2 wheels move the soul."

“Don't believe anything you read on the net. Except this. Well, including this, I suppose.” Douglas Adams

insane

2280 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 370

Trusted

Subscriber

Reply # 875505 11-Aug-2013 21:44

Zeon: OMG just had ANOTHER fail. I managed to borrow 2 while the others are shipped so one replaced this one and the other I will put into the backup SAN. Seriously has anyone seen a failure rate like this?

Power issues? Ticking timebomb in controller firmware?

Still a firm believer of your whitebox/supermicro servers ? :p

Zeon

3409 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 404

Trusted

Reply # 875534 11-Aug-2013 22:59

Possibly firmware related.. perhaps there is a bug? I have 2 others with the same firmware which are running OK though. very odd.. I don't think I will touch any of the other firmwares until I get the replacement cards.

Haha well I can't say it was a Supermicro component which failed. The card runs a SAS2208 controller which I underrstand the Dell PERC series and IBM cards run, but perhaps they have different firmware. This one was kind of different, the card would still initialize without any drives attached in a PC but as soon as drives were attached would get a weird message about not being able to sync PDs/VD's (physical drives and virtual drives). It's plugged into a LSI SAS expander. The other card simply was nothing, nothing during boot, no light on the card or anything so this doesn't seem as dire.

1080p

1332 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 152
Inactive user

Reply # 881896 20-Aug-2013 22:56

Mark:
1080p: heh, it might be time to consider an upgrade to a ZFS array.

He'd want a proper storage array surely ? ;-)

:P

There is nothing more proper than ZFS. /preach

Mark

1360 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 345

Reply # 881991 21-Aug-2013 09:27

1080p:
Mark:
1080p: heh, it might be time to consider an upgrade to a ZFS array.

He'd want a proper storage array surely ? ;-)

:P

There is nothing more proper than ZFS. /preach

hehehe .. well I do work for a competing company so I have to say such things ;-) That said I do like the concept of ZFS, bit-rot detection, built in compression/de-dupe and all the other goodies, but I just wish they'd nail it down and not have all the different pool and filesystem versions which may or may not be portable!

Currently I'm trying to source some Flash DOMs so I can rebuild my Thecus NAS with FreeBSD and make use of ZFS, Thecus did have ZFS, but it was via FUSE module and it SSSSUUUUCCCCKKKKKEEEDDDDDDD!!!!! :-(

1 | 2