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On of our HP Proliant DL320 G4's is reporting a failure. It's running Windows 2003 and configured using the built in software SATA Raid.

The array manager shows only one drive attached labelled "Port 1" and so it's in a degraded state.

I have the replacement drive sitting on my desk and I'm all ready to go to the hosting centre to swap it out... My question is... how do I know which drive to pull?

The on board software raid on the HP's does NOT show any lights on the disks and therefore it is not possible to see which one has failed, which one is working or the ability to blink a specific drive.

Is there a simple rule that Port 0 is on the left and Port 1 is on the right?

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There is no simple rule that would be the same on all machines, so you will have to consult your documentation.

Also look for an etched label on the machine's case. These can sometimes be difficult to see clearly even in reasonable lighting conditions so try with a torch.

Still take care though: if the machine doesn't have fixed wiring for each drive bay (which is common in non-hot-swap arrangements) any label or document could be wrong because the controller would not know if you'd plugged SATA data cable 1 into drive bay 3 and so forth...

One extra possible clue: If the array is only using one drive and there is a visible activity LED on each drive (there usually is when drives are front-mounted for hot-swapping), create some IO activity and you should see one drive being active and the other not.

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The DL320 G4 has an Intel 82801FR SATAS controller which provides RAID0/1 via hardware not software. If you've installed the 'Proliant Support Pack' (PSP) you should be able to find the 'Array Configuration Utility' (ACU), fire that up and it will give you lots more information about your array, including details of any failure conditions. If you've not installed it then get the latest PSP from HERE, install it then look for the ACU.

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There are no controllers present when looking with the ACU. However, you can install the HP Storage Manager and that shows the controller "SATA HostRAID (adpahci)". From here is where I know that it is failed and that there is only a drive detected on Port 1. It does not give me the option to "blink" the drive. There was a sticker on the server when purchsed that stated the drive lights will not work when using the embedded sata raid. Hence the problem knowing which drive failed. – Robin Day Jul 29 '09 at 11:36
Bay 1 is the left-hand slot when looked at from the front. – Chopper3 Jul 29 '09 at 11:57
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Ok, so I managed to get downtime on the server so I could shut it down and therefore pull the drives safely to see which one was which. On this server (I can't say the same for all) Port 0 is the left bay looking at the front and Port 1 is the right bay.

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If you purchased the iLO option from HP and have hooked it up you can access the iLO (insight Lights Out) and look at the drive information there. You also can use iLO to remote to the machine, reboot it, and then look at the RAID configuration via the RAID utility on post to see what drive is degraded.

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