A hot spare is a disk drive that automatically replaces any failed drive in a logical device, and can subsequently be used to rebuild that logical device.
A global hot spare is not assigned to a specific logical device. It protects any logical device (except RAID 0). You can create a global hot spare either before or after you build your logical devices; you can also create a hot spare while you’re creating a logical device.
A dedicated hot spare is an assigned hot spare—it is used only to rebuild the logical devices to which it is assigned. A dedicated hot spare that has been assigned to protect more than one logical device is called a pool spare.
When a logical device is rebuilt using a hot spare, data from the failed drive is transferred to the hot spare. When copyback is enabled, data is moved back to its original location once the controller detects that the failed drive has been replaced. Once the data is copied back, the hot spare becomes available again.
Copyback is disabled by default.
To enable (or disable) copyback:
In the Enterprise View, right-click a controller.
Click Enable or Disable copy back mode. (The copyback setting is a toggle switch.)
In the Enterprise View, select a controller.
In the Physical Devices View, click the disk drive you want to designate as a hot spare.
Click the Create Hot Spare button.
A plus sign (+) appears on the selected disk drive, indicating that it’s designated as a hot spare. A plus sign also appears on the logical devices that include the hot spare. Any other logical devices created on the controller will automatically be protected by that global hot spare.
To Create a Dedicated Hot Spare:
In the Enterprise View, click the controller on which you want a dedicated hot spare.
In the Physical Devices View, select an available (unused) disk drive.
In the Actions menu, click Create dedicated hot-spare drive for, then select the logical device you want it assigned to.
A plus sign (+) appears on the selected disk drive, indicating that it’s designated as a hot spare.
To use the same dedicated hot spare to protect another logical device (create a pool hot spare), repeat Step 2 and Step 3.
Note! You cannot assign a hot spare to a logical device while it is being built or modified.
You may want to delete a global hot spare to:
Make disk drive space available for a logical device.
Remove the hot spare designation from a disk drive that is no longer being used as a hot spare.
To delete a hot spare:
In the Enterprise View, select the controller associated with the hot spare.
In the Physical Devices View, click the hot spare.
In the Actions menu, click Delete hot-spare drive.
The hot spare is deleted and the disk drive becomes available for other uses in your storage space.
To Remove or Delete a Dedicated Hot Spare:
You can delete a dedicated hot spare or remove it from a logical device. You may want to do this to:
Make disk drive space available for another logical device.
Make a dedicated hot spare into a global hot spare.
Remove the ‘hot spare’ designation from a disk drive that is no longer being used as a hot spare.
Note! When a hot spare is built into a logical device after a disk drive failure, it retains its ‘hot spare’ designation even though it can no longer protect the logical devices it’s assigned to.
To remove or delete a dedicated hot spare:
In the Enterprise View, click the controller associated with the hot spare.
In the Physical Devices View, click the hot spare.
In the menu bar, select Actions, then click Delete dedicated hot-spare drive, or click Remove dedicated hot-spare drive from, then select the logical device you want.
The hot spare is deleted or removed, and the disk drive becomes available for other uses in your storage space.
You can not create a hot spare for RAID 0 logical devices.
You can not create a hot spare from a disk drive that is already part of a logical device.
You should select a disk drive that is at least as big as the largest disk drive it might replace.
Adaptec recommends that you not designate a SAS hot spare for a logical device comprising SATA disk drives, or a SATA hot spare for logical device comprising SAS disk drives.
What Do the Hot Spare Icons Mean?
Icon |
Explanation |
Action |
|
Healthy global or dedicated hot spare |
No action required. |
|
Hot spare is not assigned to any logical devices Hot spare is too small to protect the logical device(s) it’s assigned to |
Create at least one logical device on the same controller Designate larger disk drive as hot spare |
|
Hot spare has been built into a logical device after disk drive failure |
Designate replacement or other available disk drive as new hot spare |