Troubleshooting

A P P E N D I X D

Troubleshooting

This appendix provides basic troubleshooting information and solutions for solving HBA problems. The appendix contains the following sections:

Troubleshooting Checklist

Silencing the Alarm

Recovering From a Disk Drive Failure

Troubleshooting Checklist

If you encounter difficulties installing or using the Sun StorageTek SAS RAID Internal HBA, check these items first:

With the computer powered off, check the connections to each disk drive, power supply, LED connector, and so on.

Try disconnecting and reconnecting disk drives from the HBA.

Check that the HBA is installed in a compatible expansion slot (x8 PCI Express).

Ensure that the HBA is firmly seated and secured in the expansion slot.

If the HBA is not detected during system boot, try installing it in a different compatible expansion slot.

Did the driver install correctly?

If you have external disk drives (or other devices), are they powered on?

If you are still unable to resolve a problem, you can find additional troubleshooting information and direction at http://www.sun.com.

Silencing the Alarm

An alarm will sound when an error occurs. To silence the alarm, use BIOS RAID Configuration utility. See Using the BIOS RAID Configuration Utility.

Recovering From a Disk Drive Failure

This section explains how to recover when a disk drive fails:

If the array was protected by a hot-spare (see Failed Disk Drive Protected by a Hot-Spare).

If the array was not protected by a hot-spare (see Failed Disk Drive Not Protected by a Hot-Spare).

If there is a disk drive failure in more than one array simultaneously (see Failure in Multiple Arrays Simultaneously).

If it is a RAID 0 array (see Disk Drive Failure in a RAID 0 Array).

If multiple disk drives fail within the same array (see Multiple Failures in the Same Array).

Failed Disk Drive Protected by a Hot-Spare

When an array is protected by a hot-spare, if a disk drive in that array fails the hot-spare is automatically incorporated into the array and takes over for the failed drive.

To Recover From a Disk Drive Failure

1. Remove and replace the failed disk drive (following manufacturer’s instructions).

2. Choose the correct step:

If copyback is not enabled--In the Sun StorageTek RAID Manager graphical user interface (GUI), remove the ‘hot-spare’ designation from the original hot-spare (the disk drive that was built into the array). Then, designate a new hot-spare to protect the arrays on that HBA.

If copyback is enabled--Data is automatically moved back to its original location once the HBA detects that the failed drive has been replaced. No action is required.

Failed Disk Drive Not Protected by a Hot-Spare

When an array is not protected by a hot-spare, if a disk drive in that array fails, remove and replace the failed disk drive. The HBA detects the new disk drive and begins to rebuild the array.

If the HBA fails to rebuild the array, check that the cables, disk drives, and HBAs are properly installed and connected. Then, if necessary, use Sun StorageTek RAID Manager GUI to rebuild the array. For instructions, refer to the Sun StorageTek RAID Manager Software User’s Guide or online Help.

Failure in Multiple Arrays Simultaneously

If there is a disk drive failure in more than one array at the same time (one failure per array), and the arrays have hot-spares protecting them, the HBA rebuilds the arrays with these limitations:

A hot-spare must be of equal or greater size than the failed disk drive it’s replacing.

Failed disk drives are replaced with hot-spares in the order in which they failed. (The array that includes the disk drive that failed first is rebuilt first, assuming an appropriate hot-spare is available--see bullet above.)

If there are more disk drive failures than hot-spares, see Failed Disk Drive Not Protected by a Hot-Spare.

If copyback is enabled, data is moved back to its original location once the HBA detects that the failed drive has been replaced.

Disk Drive Failure in a RAID 0 Array

Because RAID 0 volumes do not include redundancy, if a disk drive fails in a RAID 0 array, the data can’t be recovered.

Correct the cause of the failure or replace the failed disk drives. Then, restore your data (if available).

Multiple Failures in the Same Array

Except in RAID 6 and RAID 60 arrays (see Selecting the Best RAID Level), if more than one disk drive fails at the same time in the same array, the data cannot be recovered.

Correct the cause of the failure or replace the failed disk drives. Then, restore your data (if available).

Note - In some instances, RAID 10 and RAID 50 arrays may survive multiple disk drive failures, depending on which disk drives fail. For more information, refer to the Sun StorageTek RAID Manager Software User’s Guide or online Help.