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Rebooting during RAID expantion.

R

RedBill

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Joined
Mar 21, 2009
Messages
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I've been trolling through the forums and the internet in general for a bit now and I still can't find an answer to this so here goes.

I have a Adaptec 3805 with a 6 disk raid5 array, and have recently upgraded the drives attached to it from 500gb's to 1Tb's.

I've been in the process of expanding the array to fill the newly available space and my computer has locked up about half way through. I say locked up because it hasn't blue screened and while it is unresponsive the led indicators on the card still look like is going flat tack.

What I want to know is if I can reboot the computer safely, or if I should wait out the remaining time and about 5 days at this point and reboot when the lights stop flashing.

Any help is greatly appreciated at this point.
 
I'd probably wait, if the computer is unresponsive you could have another computer on the network send it a reboot command, i think you need some ms tools package installed, i know it's saved my ass a few times when i'm at home and doing a ms update or something and the f'er freezes up while rebooting and my remote connection doesn't do anything, 9 out of 10 times sending it the command works, forget what it is off hand but it's some dos command, we sometimes f' with people at work by closing their programs and have them call us in to see what's going on, usually do it to the hot ones so we can get some time with them ;p
 
It's unresponsive to ping so remote shutdown isn't an option. As far as can tell I'd have to hard reset via the reset button.

I guess the bigest problem is the below comment from an Experts exchange post.
- Restarting the machine while the array was expanding will result in a lost array.
http://www.experts-exchange.com/Storage/Storage_Technology/Q_22562363.html
Click to expand...

I'd expect to find something on Adaptec's site though confirming this though as this seems like an important bit of information.

Is anyone able to confirm that this is the case?
 
Rebooting should resume from where it left off, assuming you don't CUT the power to the raid drive and the hard drives, but only do a reset (e.g. hit the reset button on your case, if you can't soft reboot). That way, there's still continuous power to the electronics, and nothing should be lost.

Besides, if it's that unresponsive, it's probably useless to keep waiting. So just hit the reset and see what happens.

That's part of why I don't like the Adaptec cards - their expansion routines are really crap and take far too long, which may cause situations like yours. They're lightning fast on my Areca card, on the other hand.
 
I suspect you may be right about it not doing anything at the moment. The indicator lights on the card are flashing as expected so their is a chance that it is still processing the expansion. Unfortunately if I restart I can't go back.

I'd like to confirm that rebooting the machine during the expansion won't flatten the array, (preferably from someone who has done this with an Adaptec card), before I go ahead and take this step.

I've heard very good things about the Areca cards, and if I was doing this over I'd be looking very hard at getting one of these instead :)
 
RedBill said:
I'd like to confirm that rebooting the machine during the expansion won't flatten the array, (preferably from someone who has done this with an Adaptec card), before I go ahead and take this step.
Click to expand...

I can confirm that power loss (as in the power goes out--literally) on the 3805 during OCE can (did, in my case) result in a corrupt array. I wouldn't know about a clean shutdown though.

I wouldn't even uncleanly shutdown any system during an OCE though, regardless of the card.
 
I've rebooted (hit the reset button on the case) and my Areca would just pick up where it left off. It did that too on my Adaptec (51645), but I'm not guaranteeing the same will happen to you. I'm just saying, as long as you dont CUT the power (e.g. literally pull the plug or hold the power button for 4 seconds), theres a better chance that it'll be able to resume where it left off when you do a hard reset on the case.

Good luck.
 
I would play it safe to be honest and let it keep going. If you ever do get another RAID card, the Areca ones don't care if you reboot during expansion at all. Even if your computer freezes, you can still access the RAID card via the ethernet port (on most of the cards) to monitor progress. If the computer dies, just move the card over to another one (you don't even need to have an OS installed...as long as the RAID card is getting power, it will keep on working).
 
Thanks for that Volkum, did you manage to recover anything off the drives after that or did you have to start over?

At this point I think I'll leave it till next weekend at the rate it was going it should have finished by then if it is going to. If it doesn't at least I won't be left with that sinking what if feeling.
 
How was this recovered?
Did you just force the array online, or did you have delete the array and then recreate?
 
If you're going to just wait it out until the estimated run time, just watch until the LEDs do the silly "Knight Rider" pattern, which means the card is idling. At least that's the behavior of the 5-series cards; not sure about the 3 series, but probably similar.
 
If you're going to just wait it out until the estimated run time, just watch until the LEDs do the silly "Knight Rider" pattern, which means the card is idling. At least that's the behavior of the 5-series cards; not sure about the 3 series, but probably similar.
Reply With Quote
Click to expand...

A quick search online leads me to believe that the knight rider pattern is the the indicator for it idling.

I can't find any official reference on what all the patterns mean though so while the lights are flashing in a sequence I have no clue what it means.

Has anyone run across such a reference in their travels through the internet?
 
If your card's still under the warranty period, you might want to just send an e-mail to Adaptec to ask them what the best course of action is. If it was scheduled to finish in a few days, id just go ahead and let it finish up unless you have some work you need to do on that particular system.
 
If your card's still under the warranty period, you might want to just send an e-mail to Adaptec to ask them what the best course of action is. If it was scheduled to finish in a few days, id just go ahead and let it finish up unless you have some work you need to do on that particular system.
Click to expand...
Thanks for that Alamone,
I've already sent this off unfortunately they only answer these emails 9 to 5 so I don't expect an answer till Monday or Tuesday:(
I'll update you on what they come back with though.
 
I get to go home today and actually use my computer for once!

When I took a look at it this morning the lights were in the idle (knight rider) pattern. I've rebooted and the array is showing as optimal in bios :D

I haven't had a chance to check that the data is still there yet but I'm pretty sure that it's all good.

Thanks to everyone that helped out.
 
I just want to kick this one to the top. With my RAIDCore card, rebooting didn't affect expansion. With my Adaptec 5805 with current firmware, rebooting kicked my RAID-5 array into degraded mode. The drive that I added is now automatically clearing. The 'reconfiguring' counter is still upticking from where it left off. The array is still available. Go figure.
 
Alexdi said:
I just want to kick this one to the top. With my RAIDCore card, rebooting didn't affect expansion. With my Adaptec 5805 with current firmware, rebooting kicked my RAID-5 array into degraded mode. The drive that I added is now automatically clearing. The 'reconfiguring' counter is still upticking from where it left off. The array is still available. Go figure.
Click to expand...

Well that's how any decent raid controller is supposed to work, resuming at the last LBA before it was interrupted. Adaptec's 5 series just happened to be garbage. If they finally pulled their heads out in their latest offerings then better late than never I guess.
 
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