PowerEdge: How to Assign a Hard Drive as a Global Hot Spare on a PERC

A global hot spare is an unused disk that is part of the disk group. Hot spares remain in standby mode. When a hard drive that is used in a virtual disk fails, the assigned hot spare is activated to replace the failed hard drive without interrupting the system or requiring your intervention. When a hot spare is activated, it rebuilds the data for all redundant virtual disks that were using the failed hard drive.

You can change the hot spare assignment by unassigning a disk and choosing another disk as needed. You can also assign more than one hard drive as a global hot spare.

Note: To replace a failed hard drive, global hot spares must use the same disk technology and must be equal or greater in size.

To assign or unassign a global hot spare for a hard drive, see the following steps:

Using the PERC UEFI HII Configuration Utility

Perform the following steps to create global hot spares:

1. Press F2 during server POST to enter System Setup.
2. Select Device Settings.
3. Select the PERC controller from the list of devices to enter the PERC configuration Utility.
4. Click Main Menu > Physical Disk Management.
   The list of physical disks is displayed.
5. Select the physical disk.

6. From the Operations drop-down menu, select Assign Global Hot Spare.
    

7. Click Go.
   
8. The global hot spare disk is created successfully.

Using OpenManage Server Administrator

1. Select the disk in the Connector (channel or port) table that you want to use as the dedicated hot spare. On some controllers, more than one disk can be selected. The disks that you have selected as dedicated hot spares are displayed in the Disks that are configured as a dedicated hot spare table.
2. Click Apply Changes when ready.

Using iDRAC8

1. In the iDRAC Web interface, go to the menu Overview > Storage > Physical Disks > Setup. The Setup Physical Disk page is displayed.
2. From the Controller drop-down menu, select the controller to view the associated hard drives.
3. To assign as a global hot spare, from the drop-down menus in the Action-Assign to All column, select Global Hotspare for one or more hard drives.
4. To unassign a hot spare, from the drop-down menus in the Action-Assign to All column, select Unassign Hotspare for one or more hard drives.
5. From the Apply Operation Mode drop-down menu, select when you want to apply the settings.
6. Click Apply

Using iDRAC9

1. In the iDRAC web interface, go to Storage > Physical Disks.
   The Storage Configuration page is displayed

   Note: In iDRAC 5.00.00.00 and older, you click Configuration > Storage Configuration and then select the controller to view associated hard drive.

2. To assign as a global hotspare, from the drop-down menus in the Action column, select Assign Global Hotspare for one or more hard drives.
    

3. Click Ok to confirm the requested action in the Warning dialog box.

   1. To unassign a hot spare, from the drop-down menus in the Action column, select Unassign Hotspare for one or more hard drives.

4. Select the desired option for when to run the job, Apply Later, Apply Now, At Next Reboot, or At Scheduled Time. The available options can change depending on the current state of the server.
    

5. You can select Job Queue to view the state of the requested job or choose Ok to go back to the Physical Disks View.