Dell PowerFlex 4.5.x Administration Guide

Replacing a drive

You can replace a failed drive in a deployed node. PowerFlex Manager supports the replacement of SSD and NVMe drives for PowerFlex storage-only nodes and hyperconverged nodes.

1. On the menu bar, click Lifecycle > Resource Groups.
2. On the Resource Groups page, select a resource group and click View Details in the right pane.
3. Scroll down to the Physical Nodes section of the page.
4. Under Physical Nodes, click Drive Replacement.
   PowerFlex Manager displays the Node List panel in the Drive Replacement wizard.
5. Click the node for which you want to perform a drive replacement.
6. Click Next.
   PowerFlex Manager displays the Select Drive panel. Any empty slots are shown in gray. The slots that have drives are shown in black.
7. Select the drive that you want to replace by clicking the drive slot in the hardware image, or select the drive from the table.

   Be sure to click the correct drive, because the drive replacement process is irreversible.

   The color for the selected drive changes to blue and the table below the hardware image is selected. The table shows details about the selected drive. To help you pick the correct drive, PowerFlex Manager provides the iDRAC name for the drive, the PowerFlex drive name, and the serial number.
8. Optionally, click Launch iDRAC GUI to see iDRAC details about the selected drive before proceeding.

   When you launch iDRAC, the iDRAC GUI opens in a different tab. Log in and go to the drive details.

9. Optionally, click Blink LED to cause the selected drive to blink.
   PowerFlex Manager turns on the blinking LED on the selected drive and keeps it blinking until you pull the disk out. A new disk is not in a blinking state. PowerFlex Manager is not able to determine whether the drive is blinking. If the drive is already blinking, you can click Unblink LED to turn off the blinking LED.
10. Click Next when you are ready to delete the drive.
    PowerFlex Manager displays the Confirmation page. PowerFlex Manager provides details about the drive and shows a hardware image again with the drive that is selected in blue.
11. Review the information carefully under Confirm Drive Replacement to be sure that you have selected the correct drive. If you are certain that you want to proceed, type REMOVE DRIVE.
12. Click Confirm.
    PowerFlex Manager puts the resource group into the In Progress state and updates the Recent Activity to show that a drive removal operation is started. After several minutes, if the node ejection is successful, PowerFlex Manager places the resource group and the node in service mode and deletes the drive from the storage pool. The resource group and the node remain in service mode until the drive is replaced in the node, and the drive replacement process has completed. During this period, PowerFlex Manager does not enable you to enter service mode for the node, or perform another drive replacement within the same resource group.

    PowerFlex Manager displays a banner at the top of the Resource Group Details page to notify you that a drive replacement is in process for the selected drive.

    For NVMe disks, PowerFlex Manager initiates a job to instruct iDRAC to delete the NVMe disk safely from the operating system.

    If the drive ejection process fails, PowerFlex Manager displays a banner at the top of the Resource Group Details page to notify you that the initial step to eject the drive failed. When the delete drive step fails in the drive replacement process, the banner displays a Retry Drive Replacement option to help you to restart the drive replacement process.

    If there is a failure, the resource group and the node do not remain in service mode. Instead, they return to the previous state that the resource group was in before you attempted the drive replacement.

13. Pull the disk out of the slot, and insert the new disk.
14. On the disk replacement banner at the top of the Resource Group Details page, click Actions>Complete Drive Replacement.

    PowerFlex Manager opens the Complete Drive Replacement wizard and runs inventory on the node. It takes a couple of minutes to get the updated inventory for the node.

    After getting the updated inventory, PowerFlex Manager displays the Found New Drive page or the Continue Without Drive page. If PowerFlex Manager finds the new drive, it displays the drive that is selected in green on the Found New Drive page.

    If PowerFlex Manager does not find the new drive, it displays the Continue Without Drive page. If you are certain that you want to proceed without a new drive, type CONTINUE WITHOUT DRIVE. If you proceed, the node is taken out of service mode with fewer drives, which might impact the capacity and performance of the resource group. Click Confirm to finish the process without adding a drive.

15. Click Complete to finish the disk replacement process.
    PowerFlex Manager puts the resource group into the In Progress state and updates the Recent Activity to show that a complete drive replacement operation is started. Then, PowerFlex Manager replaces the drive in the resource group, and takes the resource group and the node out of service mode.

    When the drive addition is complete, PowerFlex Manager displays a banner at the top of the resource group to notify you that the drive replacement is complete. PowerFlex Manager enables the Reconfigure MDM Roles and Drive Replacement options again. The resource group returns to the previous state after the drive replacement successfully completes.