“Parity Initialization Status: In Progress” for long time

hphp-prolianthp-smart-arrayraid5

Two weeks ago I installed 6 new hard disks (HP 500GB 6G 7.2K SFF 2.5-inch 2-ports SAS DualPort Midline, 507610-B21)
in a "HP DL 380 G5" with a "Smart Array P400" (RAM Firmware Revision 2.08, ROM Firmware Revision 2.08).

I created a new logical disk with 5 physical disk in RAID 5 and a spare drive (array B):

[…]
=> ctrl all show config

Smart Array P400 in Slot 1 (sn: P61620D9SUKHBP)

array A (SAS, Unused Space: 0 MB)

  logicaldrive 1 (136.7 GB, RAID 1, OK)

  physicaldrive 2I:1:1 (port 2I:box 1:bay 1, SAS, 146 GB, OK)
  physicaldrive 2I:1:2 (port 2I:box 1:bay 2, SAS, 146 GB, OK)

array B (SAS, Unused Space: 0 MB)

  logicaldrive 2 (1.8 TB, RAID 5, OK)

  physicaldrive 1I:1:5 (port 1I:box 1:bay 5, SAS, 500 GB, OK)
  physicaldrive 1I:1:6 (port 1I:box 1:bay 6, SAS, 500 GB, OK)
  physicaldrive 1I:1:7 (port 1I:box 1:bay 7, SAS, 500 GB, OK)
  physicaldrive 2I:1:3 (port 2I:box 1:bay 3, SAS, 500 GB, OK)
  physicaldrive 2I:1:4 (port 2I:box 1:bay 4, SAS, 500 GB, OK)
  physicaldrive 1I:1:8 (port 1I:box 1:bay 8, SAS, 500 GB, OK, spare)

[…]

After that I could create the filesystem on It, mount It and use It without any issue.

My problem is that One week later the controller still was initializing parity.

[…]
Array: B
Interface Type: SAS
Unused Space: 0 MB
Status: OK

  Logical Drive: 2
     Size: 1.8 TB
     Fault Tolerance: RAID 5
     Heads: 255
     Sectors Per Track: 32
     Cylinders: 65535
     Stripe Size: 64 KB
     Status: OK
     Array Accelerator: Enabled
     Parity Initialization Status: In Progress
     Unique Identifier: 600508B10010443953554B484250000C
     Disk Name: /dev/cciss/c0d1
     Mount Points: /buzonesdir 1.8 TB
     OS Status: LOCKED
     Logical Drive Label: A0C36F2EP61620D9SUKHBPA42A

[…]

At that moment, trying to speed up the parity initialization, I increased the rebuild and expand priority from "medium" to "high".

But, one week later (working with high priority) the "Parity Initialization Status" is still "In Progress".

Do you know if this is normal and I should let It continue working?
Do you know any way to check if really "Parity initialization" is being done and how long It will last?

Thank you very much.

Best Answer

The rebuild/expand priority setting doesn't affect parity initialization.

Be aware that parity initialization only occurs when the controller is not busy. If you are actively using the controller, it will not be making much progress towards completing initialization. To make initialization complete as fast as possible, allow the system to sit idle until initialization completes.

You may also have some success by changing the "Surface Scan Analysis Priority" to "High". If this setting is set to "Delay", then the controller will have to be idle for the specified number of seconds before it resumes a surface scan or parity initialization operation. Setting this to "High" should force the controller to make some sort of progress even if it is busy. After initialization completes, though, you'll probably want to reset this back to whatever value it started with.

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