User guide

Chapter 9. Maintaining Units
138 3ware Serial ATA RAID Controller User Guide
About Inoperable Units
Units become inoperable when there are no longer enough drives in the unit
for it to function. For example, a RAID 5 unit created from four drives
becomes degraded if one drive fails or is removed, but becomes inoperable if
two drives fail or are removed. A RAID 6 unit created from five drives
becomes degraded if one or two drives is removed, but becomes inoperable if
three drives fail or are removed.
Data on an inoperable unit cannot be accessed unless the missing drives are
reconnected.
If you have data on a unit that is currently “inoperable,” contact technical
support.
Alarms, Errors, and Other Events
3ware provides several levels of detail about alarms, errors, and other events.
This information is available through the 3DM web application and the CLI.
On Windows systems, the WinAVAlarm alert utility can also be used to notify
you of events.
The next few pages describe these capabilities.
• “Viewing Alarms, Errors, and Other Events” on page 138
• “Using the Alert Utility Under Windows” on page 139
• “Downloading an Error Log” on page 141
• “Viewing SMART Data About a Drive” on page 141
CLI capabilities are described in the “3ware® CLI Guide” 3ware Serial ATA
RAID Controller CLI Guide.
Viewing Alarms, Errors, and Other Events
The Alarms page in 3DM shows a log of all events (also called Asynchronous
Event Notifications, or AENs) that have occurred on units. These events
include alarms that occur when the 3ware RAID controller requires attention,
such as when a disk unit becomes degraded and is no longer fault tolerant.
They also include SMART notifications and informational notification, such
as when sectors have been repaired during verification.
Tip: If you have an enclosure that has an integrated AMCC/3ware CCU (chassis
control unit), the LEDs on your enclosure also provide you with status information
about drives. For more information, see “Enclosure LED Status Indicators” on page
150.