LSI Hot Spares Question

[TangoWhiskey9]

I'm setting up a machine to send off. There will be three sets of RAID 1 disks:

2x 300GB - RAID 1
2x 300GB - RAID 1
2x 600GB - RAID 1

With the other two slots I want to add a 300GB and a 600GB hot spare. This is going to the DC so I don't want to worry about swapping drives.

Here's my quandary:

1. Can I set the 300GB spare to work across arrays?
2. If I set the 300GB and 600GB spare to global hot spares, is the onboard LSI 2008 controller smart enough to use the right capacity disk if the 300GB or 600GB drive fails? If the first to fail is a 300GB drive I don't want the 600GB drive to plug the hole.
3. Any guide to make this work the way I want?

TIA for help

 

[Chuckleb]

I think LSI has the conveyor of a local hotspare associated to an array, you could assign the 600GB to that array do it doesn't get used globally.

 

[Patrick]

I thought you could do this. I will try something similar tonight.

 

[c912039]

I'm setting up a machine to send off. There will be three sets of RAID 1 disks:

2x 300GB - RAID 1
2x 300GB - RAID 1
2x 600GB - RAID 1

With the other two slots I want to add a 300GB and a 600GB hot spare. This is going to the DC so I don't want to worry about swapping drives.

Here's my quandary:

1. Can I set the 300GB spare to work across arrays?
2. If I set the 300GB and 600GB spare to global hot spares, is the onboard LSI 2008 controller smart enough to use the right capacity disk if the 300GB or 600GB drive fails? If the first to fail is a 300GB drive I don't want the 600GB drive to plug the hole.
3. Any guide to make this work the way I want?

TIA for help

The LSI controller will let you set:

300GB as a Global Hot Spare
600GB as a Dedicated Hot Spare

With those settings, it will ensure that the 300GB Global Hot Spare can be used on either of your 300GB RAID1's, but because of its size, it wont attempt to use it as a spare for your 600GB RAID1.
By dedicating the 600GB Hot Spare to the 600GB RAID1 array, it will ensure that the 600GB drive will only be used on for the 600GB RAID1, and not for either of the 300GB RAID1 arrays.

 

[Chuckleb]

Yep, exactly the option that I was thinking of! I guess the other best option is to use 600s as the spares.