Frequently Asked Questions: Drive Failures

1. Q: My system is reporting a drive failure. How do I obtain a replacement?

   A: If contacting Support for a drive replacement, you will need to have the following information ready:

   • SM Serial number
   • This serial number is typically located on the back of your system, starting with the characters SM and followed by five digits. Example: SM12345
   • Drive model number
   • Seagate drives usually start with “ST”, and the next 3-4 digits denote capacity. Example: ST4000NM0023 is a Seagate 4TB (4000 GB) drive.
   • Western Digital drives usually start with a “WD”, and the next 3-4 digits denote capacity. Example: WD2000FYYZ is a Western Digital 2TB (2000GB) drive.
   • Drive serial number
   • Seagate drive serials are almost always 8 characters long, and are mixed alphanumeric. Example: 3QN22R36
   • Western Digital drive serials usually start with a “W” and 3-4 other characters to denote a part of a drive series, and are then followed by 7-8 digits. Example: WCAVY1234567
   • Shipping address
   • By default, the RMA will typically be shipped to the same address as was used on the original order for the SM serial number. However, as address changes are fairly common, please verify the shipping address prior to RMA approval.

2. Q: My system beeping and I have a solid red light on one of the drives. Is this a drive failure?

   A: If your system contains a LSI MegaRAID controller, these are indeed the typical symptoms of a drive failure. If you have not yet taken the opportunity to set up RAID controller monitoring through one of LSI’s tools, you can gather event logs from the RAID controller with a single utility known as LSIget.

   Obtain LSIget from the following web page:

   http://www.avagotech.com/support/knowledgebase/1211161499563/lsiget-data-capture-script

   • Extract and run:
   • Linux: "./lsigetlunix.sh -D -Q"
   • WIndows: "lsigetwin.bat"

   This will generate a .tar.gz or a .zip file in the current directory with a copy of the logs gathered.

   If running Open-E on your storage appliance, the LSIget output will be automatically included in the hardware logs.

   To share it with Support, simply host this archive on a file sharing utility of your choice, or, if you’d like to send it directly through email, rename the file attachment to “.removeme”, then provide it to Support via email, and a technician will scan the logs for information to help identify the failed component.

   Please note that LSIget may contain sensitive information about your system in addition to the logs that it pulls from the RAID controller. If you are not comfortable sharing this information with Silicon Mechanics and Avago, you can choose to send only the contents of the MegaRAID or NytroMegaRAID folders, and omit the rest.

3. Q: My system is behaving oddly, but I am not sure if I have a drive failure. How can I determine whether my drives are healthy?

   A: Again in cases of LSI MegaRAID controllers, you can utilize the LSIget utility, or install one of LSI’s management utilities to get periodic status updates. If your system does not contain a RAID controller, you can use S.M.A.R.T. to check the status of individual drives.

   The easiest way to view S.M.A.R.T. logging on a drive is with the Smartmontools suite. See the main page here:

   http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/smartmontools/wiki