On of our HP Proliant DL320 G4's is reporting a failure. It's running Windows 2003 and configured using the built in software SATA Raid.
The array manager shows only one drive attached labelled "Port 1" and so it's in a degraded state.
I have the replacement drive sitting on my desk and I'm all ready to go to the hosting centre to swap it out… My question is… how do I know which drive to pull?
The on board software raid on the HP's does NOT show any lights on the disks and therefore it is not possible to see which one has failed, which one is working or the ability to blink a specific drive.
Is there a simple rule that Port 0 is on the left and Port 1 is on the right?
Best Answer
There is no simple rule that would be the same on all machines, so you will have to consult your documentation.
Also look for an etched label on the machine's case. These can sometimes be difficult to see clearly even in reasonable lighting conditions so try with a torch.
Still take care though: if the machine doesn't have fixed wiring for each drive bay (which is common in non-hot-swap arrangements) any label or document could be wrong because the controller would not know if you'd plugged SATA data cable 1 into drive bay 3 and so forth...
One extra possible clue: If the array is only using one drive and there is a visible activity LED on each drive (there usually is when drives are front-mounted for hot-swapping), create some IO activity and you should see one drive being active and the other not.