Tech Note #035

Riverbed Technology, Inc.

199 Fremont Street
San Francisco, CA 94105 Products: P-P7400, P-P7500,
Phone 415.247.8800 P-H7-Mx00, Profiler Express,
Fax 415.247.8801 P-P8500, PE-H7-Enterprise,
www.riverbed.com/cascade CAP-0xxxx, CAX-00200-xxx
Date: 4/17/09

How to replace a hot-swap hard drive

The general procedure for replacing a failed hot-swap drive is as follows:
1. Verify the failure indication.
2. Ensure that the drives are configured for RAID 1.
3. Replace the failed drive.

Verify the failure indication

To verify that a hard drive has failed, you must observe the hard drive LED. To view the
hard drive LED, unlock and remove the front bezel of the system. You can remove the
front bezel by grasping it near the left or right edge and pulling straight out (after it has
been unlocked).

The hot-swap drives in the Intel models have an LED that indicates hard disk activity and
status as follows:
• When the LED is flashing slowly between green and amber it indicates that the drive
is part of a RAID set and is rebuilding or syncing.
• When the LED is flashing or solid green it indicates that there is data being read or
written (normal operation).
• When the LED is solid amber it indicates that the drive is defunct and needs to be
replaced.

Ensure that the drives are configured for RAID 1

Select Cascade configurations use RAID 1 with hot-swap drives. Ensure that the device
has two drives physically installed. You cannot use RAID 1 or perform a hot swap if
there is only one drive. Please contact Riverbed Technical Support if there is only one
drive.
There are two methods for verifying that the drives are configured for RAID 1:
• Running a command on the CLI
• Rebooting and observing hardware indications

1 © 2009 Riverbed Technology, Inc.

Verifying via command line
To verify RAID 1 drives via the command line, log in and run the following command:
sudo /opt/MegaRAID/CmdTool2/CmdTool2 ‐ldinfo ‐‐l0 a0 
Verify that the return includes "RAID Level: Primary-1." A typical return is in the form:
Adapter 0 ‐‐ Virtual Drive Information: 
Virtual Disk: 0 (Target Id: 0) 
Name: 
RAID Level: Primary‐1, Secondary‐0, RAID Level Qualifier‐0 
Size:237464MB 
State: Optimal 
Stripe Size: 64kB 
Number Of Drives:2 
Span Depth:1 
Default Cache Policy: WriteThrough, ReadAheadNone, Direct, No Write 
Cache if Bad BBU 
Current Cache Policy: WriteThrough, ReadAheadNone, Direct, No Write 
Cache if Bad BBU 
Access Policy: Read/Write 
Disk Cache Policy: Disabled 
 
Exit Code: 0x00 

Verifying via reboot

To verify that the drives are configured for RAID 1 by observing the hardware
indications:
1. Reboot the server.
2. Enter the RAID BIOS Console by pressing Ctrl + G during start up.
3. Click Start at the Adapter Selection screen.
4. Verify that there is one RAID1 virtual drive under Virtual Drives.
5. If the virtual drive is configured properly and a drive shows an amber light, or if the
RAID BIOS Console shows a drive as defunct, go to Replace the failed drive below.
6. If no RAID set is configured (no virtual drive) and there are two drives in the
machine:
• Click Configuration Wizard and select “New Configuration.”
• Select “Auto Configuration: With Redundancy.”
• Click Accept and save the configuration to create the virtual drive. The software
will configure the RAID set. Depending on the size of the drives, syncing could
take more than 12 hours. The system is fully functional during this time and can
be used normally after you reboot.
7. When the drives have finished syncing verify that the drive is still showing a solid
amber light and go on to Replace the failed drive below.

2 © 2009 Riverbed Technology, Inc.

Replace the failed drive
A drive hot swap must be performed with the system running, as follows:
1. Remove the defunct drive from the chassis:
• Remove the front bezel by grasping it near the left or right edge and pulling
straight out (after it has been unlocked).
• Release the latch on the front of the drive showing a solid amber LED and pull it
out of the chassis about one inch.
• The server will begin to beep.
• Slowly pull the drive completely out of the chassis.
2. Install the replacement drive into the chassis:
• Remove the new drive from its packaging and slowly slide it into the chassis.
Make sure the latch on the drive is fully open.
• Once the drive has been inserted most of the way, use the latch to fully seat the
drive.
• Re-install the front bezel
3. Verify the replacement drive is syncing with the remaining drive:
• After roughly half a minute, the drive LED should begin to flash slowly between
green and orange while the new drive synchronizes with the remaining drive. The
system is fully functional during this time and can be used normally.
• If you would like to view the progress of the drive syncing, boot the machine into
the RAID BIOS Console. Click the Physical Drive that is shown as REBUILD,
you will see a Rebuild Progress bar.

3 © 2009 Riverbed Technology, Inc.

 • The server will continue to beep throughout the entire time that it takes for the
drives to sync.

For Additional Information

If you have questions or need additional information, please contact Riverbed Technical
Support at: (617) 354 9292 (menu option #2) or support@riverbed.com

4 © 2009 Riverbed Technology, Inc.