Users Guide

Property Denition
Dedicated Hot Spare Displays whether the foreign disk is a dedicated hot spare.
Based on the properties information, you can decide whether you want to import, recover, or clear the foreign conguration.
To Locate Foreign Conguration Operations Task In Storage Management
For SAS controllers with rmware version 6.1:
1. In the Server Administrator window, under the system tree, expand Storage to display the controller objects.
2. Select a controller object.
3. Click Information/Conguration on the controller Properties page.
4. Select Foreign Conguration Operations from the Controller Tasks drop-down menu.
5. Click Execute.
Importing Foreign Congurations
Some controllers enable you to import a foreign conguration so that virtual disks are not lost after moving the physical disks.
You can import a foreign conguration only if it contains a virtual disk that is either in a Ready or Degraded state. In other words, all
of the virtual disk data must be present, but if the virtual disk is using a redundant RAID level, the additional redundant data is not
required.
For example, if the foreign conguration contains only one side of a mirror in a RAID 1 virtual disk, then the virtual disk is in a
Degraded state and can be imported. On the other hand, if the foreign conguration contains only one physical disk that was
originally congured as a RAID 5 using three physical disks, then the RAID 5 virtual disk is in a Failed state and cannot be imported.
In addition to virtual disks, a foreign conguration may consist of a physical disk that was assigned as a hot spare on one controller
and then moved to another controller. The Import Foreign Conguration task imports the new physical disk as a hot spare. If the
physical disk was set as a dedicated hot spare on the previous controller, but the virtual disk to which the hot spare was assigned is
no longer present in the foreign conguration, then the physical disk is imported as a global hot spare.
The Import Foreign Conguration task is only displayed when the controller has detected a foreign conguration. You can also
identify whether a physical disk contains a foreign conguration (virtual disk or hot spare) by checking the physical disk state. If the
physical disk state is Foreign, then the physical disk contains all or some portion of a virtual disk or has a hot spare assignment.
If you have an incomplete foreign conguration which cannot be imported, you can use the Clearing Foreign Conguration option to
erase the foreign data on the physical disks.
NOTE: The task of importing foreign conguration imports all virtual disks residing on physical disks that have been
added to the controller. If more than one foreign virtual disk is present, all the congurations are imported.
Related links
Foreign Conguration Properties
Importing Or Recovering Foreign Congurations
The recover operation attempts to restore degraded, failed, or missing virtual disks to a healthy state. A virtual disk may be in a
degraded, failed, or missing state after losing communication with the controller due to a power loss, faulty cable connection, or
other failure. A rebuild or background initialization may automatically initiate after the recover operation completes.
The virtual disk data may be inconsistent after recovery. Verify the virtual disk data after the Import/Recover Foreign Conguration
task completes.
In some cases, the virtual disk data is incomplete and it is not possible to successfully recover the virtual disk.
To import or recover a foreign conguration:
Click Import/Recover to import or recover all virtual disks residing on physical disks attached to the controller.
To exit without importing or recovering the foreign conguration, click Cancel.
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