Dell PERC Question (Server Down)
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@Dashrender said in Dell PERC Question (Server Down):
you rebooted after it started a rebuild? That wasn't wise.
That's what I have seen all the DELL techs do.
I doubled checked tonight and that it definitely the supported way to go.
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it may be allowable, but seems like an unwise thing to do. For example, I would never do that on a RAID 5 array, all that math, one little bit gets messed up.. array is lost. kinda like what happened to you.
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@Dashrender said in Dell PERC Question (Server Down):
it may be allowable, but seems like an unwise thing to do. For example, I would never do that on a RAID 5 array, all that math, one little bit gets messed up.. array is lost. kinda like what happened to you.
Just on a few drives. For other drives, it worked fine.
If you had to wait the whole time for it to rebuild, it would take forever. (Think of the really long RAID5 times @scottalanmiller has mentioned.)
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of course, but normally you would have the OS up and running during that time, so the users don't see that long downtime.
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The end of the night had me trying to add the third DELL disk in, which also failed in the same way as the first.
So I now have the array fully functional with the EDGE drive that didn't ever fail, and the 1 DELL drive that worked.
Ugh.
Please stay up tonight, gentle array.
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@BRRABill said in Dell PERC Question (Server Down):
@Dashrender said in Dell PERC Question (Server Down):
you rebooted after it started a rebuild? That wasn't wise.
That's what I have seen all the DELL techs do.
I doubled checked tonight and that it definitely the supported way to go.
I've been a Dell tech. They are not trained and are just random people grabbed from third party staffing firms at the last second. Never use "Dell techs do it" as a guide to anything. It's the same as saying "random out of work guy did this".
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@scottalanmiller said
I've been a Dell tech. They are not trained and are just random people grabbed from third party staffing firms at the last second. Never use "Dell techs do it" as a guide to anything. It's the same as saying "random out of work guy did this".
Sorry, I didn't mean the techs who come out to your location. I mean their US-based phone technical support.
Is that who you mean? Is technical support safe to trust?
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Also, what is your take? Safe to reboot on a rebuilding array if you have to configure it from the controller config in BIOS?
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@BRRABill said in Dell PERC Question (Server Down):
Is that who you mean? Is technical support safe to trust?
Probably. But... that was a very reckless decision on their part. So... no.
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@BRRABill said in Dell PERC Question (Server Down):
Also, what is your take? Safe to reboot on a rebuilding array if you have to configure it from the controller config in BIOS?
No, it's reckless and crazy. You don't induce a failure risk during a repair operation.
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If it is rebuilding, why is configuration needed? Any why is configuration limited to the BIOS?
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@scottalanmiller said in Dell PERC Question (Server Down):
If it is rebuilding, why is configuration needed? Any why is configuration limited to the BIOS?
Because when this happens, the drives totally disappear from the PERC config and the server crashes. You have to go in and clear the foreign config. There is nothing to rebuild.
It's not like a drive has failed, and the LED is orange and you can pull it. Nothing like that.
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@scottalanmiller said
Any why is configuration limited to the BIOS?
I mean the PERC configuration utility access during POST but hitting <CTRL>R.
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@BRRABill said in Dell PERC Question (Server Down):
@scottalanmiller said
Any why is configuration limited to the BIOS?
I mean the PERC configuration utility access during POST but hitting <CTRL>R.
Me too
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@BRRABill said in Dell PERC Question (Server Down):
@scottalanmiller said in Dell PERC Question (Server Down):
If it is rebuilding, why is configuration needed? Any why is configuration limited to the BIOS?
Because when this happens, the drives totally disappear from the PERC config and the server crashes. You have to go in and clear the foreign config. There is nothing to rebuild.
It's not like a drive has failed, and the LED is orange and you can pull it. Nothing like that.
That means that the PERC has failed. That's a different issue.
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@scottalanmiller said
That means that the PERC has failed. That's a different issue.
Are we back to that?
I mean, it's definitely on the table. Just not sure why all of a sudden you think that's so likely.
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@BRRABill said in Dell PERC Question (Server Down):
@scottalanmiller said
That means that the PERC has failed. That's a different issue.
Are we back to that?
I mean, it's definitely on the table. Just not sure why all of a sudden you think that's so likely.
Because you said that it was rebuilding. The PERC should remain up and viable even without disks attached to it. You can continue to manage it online through the iDRAC or a VM that isn't using those drives.
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@scottalanmiller said
Because you said that it was rebuilding. The PERC should remain up and viable even without disks attached to it. You can continue to manage it online through the iDRAC or a VM that isn't using those drives.
The PERC is up. It's just the drives aren't. Certain drives aren't. The DELL 7.2K SATA drives I have in an array have not dropped off or made a peep once.
The DRAC isn't so great at managing storage or talking to the PERC, or so I have been told. (Those the remote console is worth its weight in gold)
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Are you booting from SD card? That would solve the issue, right?
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@scottalanmiller said
Not yet, but soon.
And yes, I know that if I was booting off USB/SD I could have copied the VM to my other storage repository and then redid my array.
