7-17Managing SparesIn This ChapterUnderstanding How Spares and Failover WorkStorage Manager Pro allows you to assign spare disk drives to aspare pool. If the controller detects an unrecoverable error duringI/O, it checks for an available spare drive that has sufficient freespace to handle the failover. Failover is the process by which thecontroller rebuilds data on a spare drive when a drive that is part ofan array fails.Note: Spares only work with redundant array types: mirrorset (RAID 1), RAID 5 set, stripe set of mirror sets (RAID 0/1), or stripe set of RAID 5 sets (RAID 0/5).The spare drive capacity must be equal to or larger than the faileddrive. The controller checks for spares available in the spare pool. Ifthe controller cannot find a suitable spare, and Storage Manager Prois running on the system, Storage Manager Pro displays a messagethat says the controller was unable to find a suitable spare forfailover.➤ Understanding How Spares and Failover Work 7-1➤ Managing the Spare Pool 7-2➤ Viewing Spare Assignments and Status 7-4➤ Spare Management Guidelines 7-4
