can i convert an adaptec hot spare to online status

[jch...@gmail.com]

Hello, I havent replace disks on my adaptec raid for a long time. I notice that after 4.4 years the hard drives are starting to show read errors. So I went online and read about replacing the disk. I shutdown the server took one of the disks out and put the new disk in. Then I initialized the disk. I set up the new disk as a hot spare. The array rebuild automatically but now the status is Hot Spare. All the other disk have status Online. I will have to replace 5 more disk and I am wondering if there is a way to set it up to Status Onlne instead of Hot Spare. Are there any limitations on setting up drives as Hot Spares? Thanks.

[jch...@gmail.com]

guys never mind. Some how it shows as online now. It was probably just finishing to rebuild.

[jch...@gmail.com]

Looks like the hot-spare status is back. Arcconf shows

Device #1
Device is a Hard drive
State : Hot Spare
Supported : Yes
Transfer Speed : SATA 3.0 Gb/s
Reported Channel,Device(T:L) : 0,1(1:0)
Reported Location : Connector 0, Device 1
Vendor : WDC
Model : WD5000AAKX-0
Firmware : 19.01H19
Serial number : WD-WCC2EUE60168
Size : 476940 MB
Write Cache : Enabled (write-back)
FRU : None
S.M.A.R.T. : No


but the raid adapter shows that the array is fine.

Logical device number 0
Logical device name : mirror1
RAID level : 1
Status of logical device : Optimal
Size : 142890 MB
Read-cache mode : Enabled
Write-cache mode : Disabled (write-through)
Write-cache setting : Disabled (write-through)
Partitioned : Yes
Protected by Hot-Spare : No
Bootable : Yes
Failed stripes : No
Power settings : Disabled
--------------------------------------------------------
Logical device segment information
--------------------------------------------------------
Segment 0 : Present (0,0) WD-WXL309068699
Segment 1 : Spare (0,1) WD-WCC2EUE60168

Can I change the status from Hot spare to Online, Like other drives? Can this be a problem if the other member of the array fails?

This is how the other devices look.

Device #2
Device is a Hard drive
State : Online
Supported : Yes
Transfer Speed : SATA 3.0 Gb/s
Reported Channel,Device(T:L) : 0,2(2:0)
Reported Location : Connector 0, Device 2
Vendor : WDC
Model : WD7500AALX-0
Firmware : 15.01H15
Serial number : WD-WCATR6997945
Size : 715404 MB
Write Cache : Enabled (write-back)
FRU : None
S.M.A.R.T. : No

[jch...@gmail.com]

Nice I found a link on how to do this using arcconf.

http://wiki.hetzner.de/index.php/Adaptec_RAID_Controller/en

seemed to work!