Go to Table of Contents for Storage Management Online Help

Frequently Asked Questions

Dell OpenManage™ Storage Management User's Guide

  Why is a rebuild not working?

  How can I safely remove or replace a drive?

  How do I recover from removing the wrong drive?

  How do I know what firmware is installed?

  What controllers do I have?

  How do I turn off an alarm?

  What RAID level is best for me?

This section provides frequently asked questions that address situations commonly experienced in a storage environment.

Why is a rebuild not working?

See Rebuild Does Not Work for more information.

How can I safely remove or replace a drive?

The following sections provide information related to safely removing a healthy drive:

• For disks that reside in an enclosure, use the Prepare to Remove task to locate the disk within the enclosure and deactivate it prior to removal.
  
  
• For array disks included in a virtual disk, use the Offline task to deactivate the disk prior to removal. See Online and Offline Disk for more information. If you need help locating the disk within the enclosure, you can blink the disk's light-emitting diode (LED) displays. See Blink and Unblink for more information.
  
  

The following sections describe how to replace a disk that has failed or is receiving SMART alerts:

• Replacing a Failed Disk
  
  
• Replacing an Array Disk Receiving SMART Alerts
  
  

The following sections have related information:

• Moving Array and Virtual Disks from One System to Another
  
  
• Recovering from Removing the Wrong Drive
  
  
• Protecting Your Virtual Disk with a Hot Spare
  
  

How do I recover from removing the wrong drive?

See Recovering from Removing the Wrong Drive for more information.

How do I know what firmware is installed?

The controller's properties information displays the firmware version that is installed on the controller. From the Storage tree view object, you can display the firmware version for all controllers attached to the system. (A controller's Information/Configuration subtab also displays the firmware installed on that controller.)

To display the firmware version of all controllers:

1. Select the Storage object in the tree view.
   
   
2. Click the Information/Configuration subtab. The Firmware Version column on the Information/Configuration subtab displays the firmware version for all controllers attached to the system.
   
   

Related information:

• Downloading Firmware and Cluster Controllers
  
  
• Controller Properties and Tasks
  
  

What controllers do I have?

Each controller attached to the system is displayed under the Storage object in the tree view.

In addition, the Storage object's Health and Information/Configuration subtabs display information for each controller.

To identify which controllers are attached to the system:

1. Select the Storage tree view object. The Health subtab displays the name and status for each controller attached to the system.
   
   
2. Click the Information/Configuration subtab to display additional information for each controller.
   
   
3. To display more information about a particular controller including its tasks, click the controller's name in the Name column on the Information/Configuration subtab. This action displays the controller's Information/Configuration subtab. The Information/Configuration subtab displays information about the controller's components and enables you to execute the controller tasks.
   
   

Related information:

• Controllers
  
  
• Controller Health
  
  
• Controller Properties and Tasks
  
  

How do I turn off an alarm?

Some storage components have alarms to indicate error conditions. The following describes how to turn off an alarm after it is sounding:

• Quiet Alarm (Controller)
  
  
• Disable Alarm (Controller)
  
  
• Disable Alarm (Enclosure)
  
  

What RAID level is best for me?

See Choosing RAID Levels and Concatenation and Comparing RAID Level Performance for more information.

Go to Table of Contents for Storage Management Online Help