Hello,
Apologies if this is in the wrong place, but I did not see a section specifically for the MicroServers
I have an HP MicroServer Gen8 running Windows Server 2012 Essentials that, over the last few months, has started to exhibit an annoying issue. It has an old Smart Array P212 installed and 4 x 4TB disks. Periodically disks just "disappear". They are not failing exactly, they just suddenly become invisible to the RAID controller, as though someone has just removed the disk. Sometimes I can remove and re-seat the affected disk (offline) and then, when restarted, the controller rebuilds the array. It can sometimes remain working like this for weeks. On other occasions the disk disappears again during the rebuild process.
A couple of days ago, when using the array management tool, I received a message to say that, in effect, the controller itself was inaccessible. This can be fixed with a cold restart.
With all of these issues, I have concluded, rightly or wrongly, that the controller itself is at fault. I have therefore purchased a couple of replacement controllers, a like-for-like P212 and also a P222.
My question is, can I replace the existing P212 with the P222 now, even with one of the disks offline? Or do I need the array to be completely rebuilt before it is safe to do this? Should I use the newer P212 to rebuild it first?
Despite being an IT professional who has used HP servers for several decades, I have never actually had to replace a RAID controller before, so I am not aware of the exact procedure.
Any advice would be welcome.
Thanks in advance,
Stephen.