Return to MAIN-Index  Return to SUB-Index    IBM-AUSTRIA - PC-HW-Support    30 Aug 1999

RAID HDDs and Synchronization



  RAID HDDs and Synchronization
Before installing software or data for the first time on an IBM PC Server RAID system, the following must be performed:
  1.  Update the RAID adapter Firmware to the following minimum  Firmware level or higher if necessary:

    1.  MCA RAID Adapter FRU P/N 92F0335 (Opt. P/N none) V1.99
    2.  MCA RAID Adapter FRU P/N 06H3059 (Opt. P/N 70G9263) V2.21
    3.  PCI RAID Adapter FRU P/N 06H5078 (Opt. P/N 94G2764) V2.43
    4.  ServeRAID Adapter FRU P/N 06H9334 (Opt. P/N 70G8489) V2.00

  2.  Initialize all RAID level 0, 1, and 5 Logical Drives.
  3.  Synchronize all RAID level 1 and 5 Logical Drives.


Once the software and data are installed, RAID synchronization should be run weekly to provide a high level of protection !

When a hard drive fails and is replaced in a RAID-1 or RAID-5 array, a Rebuild failure may occur if there is a sector on one of the remaining working drives that cannot be read.

RAID-1 and RAID-5 logical drives must be synchronized immediately after they are created to assure that the mirror copies of the data (RAID-1) or parity data stripes (RAID-5) are correct and match the associated blocks that they are intended to protect.


RAID synchronization is recommended as a preventive maintenace procedure to reduce the risk of an array Rebuild-failure. IBM recommends that synchronization be run weekly to provide a high level of protection. The level of protection increases as more frequent synchronizations are performed.

To reduce the frequency of synchronizations to once or twice a month and still maintain a high level of protection, schedule synchronizations along with other preventative maintenance procedures like regular tape backups.


Over time a hard disk may accumulate grown defects. This is normal. Defects are corrected on accessed files by RAID and by the disk subsystems. If a grown defect is encountered when a file is accessed, both the data and parity information are corrected using the information striped across all drives. However, if a grown defect appears on an area that is not accessed (the area is free space, or because the file is accessed from cache), then synchronization is required to reconstruct the data. If all drives are functional, the defect has a grown defect, and another drive has failed completely, then there is not enough information to reconstruct the data and the Rebuild will fail.


Synchronization can help to identify potential drive failures because it scrubs every block on a logical drive. Synchronization forces all data in the logical drive to be read regardless of whether the data is part of a valid file or just free space. The RAID adapter recomputes the parity based on the data it reads and re-writes the parity for RAID-5 or just rewrites the mirror copy of data for RAID-1. The RAID adapter reconstructs any data that it cannot read due to grown defects and re-writes/reassigns the data so that it can be read without error later. Then, if a drive fails, the Rebuild will complete.

Back to  Jump to TOP-of-PAGE
More INFORMATION / HELP is available at the  IBM-HelpCenter

Please see the LEGAL  -  Trademark notice.
Feel free - send a Email-NOTE  for any BUG on this page found - Thank you.