Monitoring Status Through Software - Silicon Graphics TP9400 RAID Owner's Manual

Monitoring Status Through Software

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Important: Once the power is off, you must wait at least 30 seconds before you turn
it back on again.
5. After you have performed the necessary maintenance procedure, turn on the power
again using the procedure given in "Turning the Power On" on page 85.
Use the storage management software (TPSSM7) to monitor drive enclosure status. You
should run the software constantly and check it frequently.
The storage management software (TPSSM7) provides the best method to diagnose and
repair drive enclosure failures. This software helps you to:
• Determine the nature of the failure.
• Locate the failed component.
• Provide recovery procedures to repair the failure.
Although the drive enclosure has fault indicators, these lights do not necessarily indicate
which component has failed or needs to be replaced, or which type of recovery procedure
you must perform. In some cases (such as loss of redundancy in various drive enclosure
components), the fault light does not even come on. Only the storage management
software (TPSSM7) can detect the failure.
For example, the recovery procedure for an impending drive failure (a predictive failure
analysis, or PFA, flag on a drive) varies depending on the drive status (hot spare,
unassigned, RAID level, current volume status, and so on). Depending on the
circumstances, a PFA flag on a drive can indicate a high risk of data loss (if the drive is in
a RAID 0 volume) or a minimal risk (if the drive is unassigned). Only the storage
management software (TPSSM7) can identify the risk level and provide the necessary
recovery procedures. Note also that in the case of PFA flags, the Global Fault and drive
Fault indicators do not come on, so just checking the indicators will not notify you of the
failure, even if the risk of data loss is high.
In addition, recovering from a drive enclosure failure may require you to perform
procedures other than replacing the component (such as backing up the volume or
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