HP Smart Array B140i User Manual

Replacing, moving, or adding hard drives 18
• Use replacement drives that have a capacity equal to or greater than the smallest drive in the array.
The controller immediately fails drives that have insufficient capacity.
• After removing a drive, wait 3 seconds. After 3 seconds, the firmware generates an event indicating
that the drive has been removed. You can now safely install a new drive.
To replace more drives in an array than the fault tolerance method can support, follow the previous
guidelines for replacing several drives simultaneously. Wait until rebuild is complete, as indicated by HPE
SSA, before replacing additional drives.
If you need to replace more drives than the fault tolerance method can support because fault tolerance
has been compromised, back up the data before replacing any drives. For more information, see
"Recovering from compromised fault tolerance (on page 17)."
Data recovery (rebuild)
When you replace a hard drive in an array, the controller uses the fault-tolerance information on the
remaining drives in the array to reconstruct the data from the original drive and write it to the replacement
drive. This process is called automatic data recovery or rebuild. If fault tolerance is compromised, this
data cannot be reconstructed and, likely, is lost permanently.
Rebuilding an array requires that you either be in offline HPE SSA or booted into the operating system
with the driver installed.
The operating system must be running for the rebuild to occur.
If another drive in the array fails while fault tolerance is unavailable during rebuild, a fatal system error can
occur, and all data on the array is then lost. In exceptional cases, however, failure of another drive does
not always cause a fatal system error. These exceptions include the following:
• Failure after activation of a spare drive
• Failure of a drive that is not mirrored to any other failed drives (in a RAID 1+0 configuration)
Time required for a rebuild
The time required for a rebuild varies, depending on several factors:
• The priority that the rebuild is given over normal I/O operations
Change the priority setting with HPE SSA ("HPE Smart Storage Administrator" on page 23).
• The amount of I/O activity during the rebuild operation
• The rotational speed of the hard drives
• The brand, model, and age of the drives
• The amount of unused capacity on the drives
• In RAID 5 configurations, the time required for a rebuild may be affected by data parity initialization.
Allow approximately 15 minutes per gigabyte for the rebuild process to complete.
System performance is affected during the rebuild, and the system is unprotected against further drive
failure until the rebuild has finished. Therefore, replace drives during periods of low activity, when
possible.
When automatic data recovery has finished, the state of the logical volume is updated in HPE
SSA/SSA-CLI/agents, and an event is posted to the system event log indicating that the rebuild is
complete.
If HPE SSA or the posted event indicates that the rebuild has terminated abnormally, determine the
appropriate course of action. See "Abnormal termination of a rebuild (on page 19)."

HP Smart Array B140i Specifications

General

Controller Model	HP Smart Array B140i
Interface	SATA
Number of Ports	6
Maximum Drives Supported	6
RAID Levels	0, 1, 10
Compatibility	HP ProLiant Gen8 Servers
Form Factor	Embedded

Summary

Overview

About the HPE Dynamic Smart Array B140i RAID controller

Provides a detailed description of the HPE Dynamic Smart Array B140i RAID controller's features and architecture.

Enabling and configuring the controller

Boot mode

Explains how to set the system's boot mode between UEFI and Legacy BIOS for controller compatibility.

Enabling the controller

Details the steps required to enable the HPE Dynamic Smart Array B140i controller in the system's BIOS/RBSU.

Configuring an array

Guides users on setting up storage arrays using RAID methods for optimal performance and fault tolerance.

Installing device drivers

Installing Linux device drivers

Manually injecting the device driver during OS installation

Replacing, moving, or adding hard drives

Recognizing drive failure

Methods to identify a failed hard drive using LED indicators and system messages.

Effects of a hard drive failure

Recovering from compromised fault tolerance

Procedures to attempt data recovery and restore logical volumes when fault tolerance is compromised.

Replacing hard drives

Step-by-step instructions for safely replacing failed hard drives in various RAID configurations.

Data recovery (rebuild)

Details the automatic data recovery process (rebuild) after a drive replacement.

Abnormal termination of a rebuild

Diagnoses and provides solutions for scenarios where the drive rebuild process fails to complete successfully.

Moving hard drives and arrays

Adding drives

Instructions on how to add new hard drives to a system and create new arrays.

Software and configuration utilities

HPE Smart Storage Administrator

Introduction to HPE SSA, the primary tool for configuring and managing Smart Array controllers.

Service Pack for ProLiant

Intelligent Provisioning

Overview of Intelligent Provisioning, a tool for simplifying server deployment and OS installation.

HPE UEFI System Utilities

Diagnostic tools

Lists and describes various diagnostic tools available for troubleshooting array problems.

Electrostatic discharge

Preventing electrostatic discharge

Precautions to take to prevent damage to the system from electrostatic discharge (ESD).

Grounding methods to prevent electrostatic discharge

Warranty and regulatory information