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I have a Dell Poweredge T520 running Win Server 2008 Rc2 with a PERC H310 RAID Controller. Two 15000 rpm 600GB hard drives setup in RAID 1. One drive is rapid flashing orange indicating failure. Can I take out the failed drive and hot swap a new identical drive in without shutting down the server, and it rebuild? Do I have to preformat the new drive or simply just pop in the new one after inserting into the carriage?

Thanks

PERC H310

Perc H310 2

user
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xrobwx
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1 Answers1

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Hot swap refers to the controller/disk ability to be swapped with the OS running, without causing downtime.

On the other hand, your screenshot are taken in the controller's BIOS screen: this means that you can shutdown/reboot the machine. In other words, you don't need any hotswap capability.

From DELL H310 manual:

Replacing An Online Physical Disk
In addition to the automatic Replace Member operation, you can manually replace any physical disk that is part of a virtual disk using the Replace Member functionality.
Perform the following steps to replace a physical disk:
1. In the Virtual Disk Management window, select Virtual Disk # and press the down-arrow key until Physical Disks is highlighted.
2. Press the right-arrow key to expand the list of physical disks that are members of the virtual disk.
3. Press the down-arrow key and highlight the desired physical disk you want to replace. Press to expand the list of allowed operations on the disk.
4. Select Replace and then Start.
5. Press the down-arrow to highlight a replacement disk and then press the spacebar to select the disk.
6. Select OK to start the replacement.

Anyway, do yourself a favor and read the manual before doing anything.

shodanshok
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  • I guess thanks for the time you took to type out your answer and look up the manual. I am a manager of a very busy architectural paint store and if I had time to read the manual, I would not have come here seeking quick, accurate advice. I know what hot swapping is, as should have been indicated in my question. I added the screenshot to perhaps give an expert in these matters a clearer picture of my hardware involving my RAID setup. I do not want to reboot as the server in question runs the store Point of sale. – xrobwx Apr 19 '16 at 11:47
  • Hi, albeit I understand that asking here is quicker than reading the relevant manual, I **strongly** suggest you against doing any IT related without a clear understanding of the underlying tech. If you server is under an active support contract, call DELL and ask them for details about the disk substitution. – shodanshok Apr 19 '16 at 12:35