Questions[hotswap](server)

I bought a new 2.5" hard drive that i put into a 1u server. I first screwed it into the hot swappable mount with screws then plugged it in. The hot swappable mount (image attached) came with a little rubber rectangle thing with one adhesive side.

I'm new to server hardware and building them. But I couldn't find any use for this? Does anyone know what they are used for? I was thinking it might go between the HD and the swappable mount to stop vibration or something however it doesn't fit there.

Rubber bit:

I'm migrating a server with 2 PSUs from 120 volts to 240 volts, and I'd rather not take it offline. It seems like I should be able to just move the PSUs to the new voltage one at a time, since they are not connected to each other.

Would it cause problems to run one PSU on 120 volts and one PSU on 240 volts for the time it takes to rack a PDU?

One of the HDDs in my server's RAID config failed, so I took it out of the array and had the data center hot-swap it. They've done that, but now the new drive is /dev/sdc rather than /dev/sda. I suspect that if I reboot the server, it will be /dev/sda again, so I'm hesitant to add it back to the array as /dev/sdc because I don't want to lay a trap for myself to fall into on the next reboot. I'd just as soon not reboot the server if I don't need to (if I do need to, well, too bad for me).

If I add it as /dev/sdc, will there be a problem on reboot? Or is there some way to change the device name from /dev/sdc to /dev/sda without rebooting?

This is on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS. It's an md array ("Linux Software RAID"), where currently one of the devices (there are a couple of them) looks like this ("degraded" because I've removed the old /dev/sda from it):

# mdadm --detail /dev/md0
/dev/md0:
        Version : 00.90.03
  Creation Time : Sun Oct 11 21:07:54 2009
     Raid Level : raid1
     Array Size : 97536 (95.27 MiB 99.88 MB)
  Used Dev Size : 97536 (95.27 MiB 99.88 MB)
   Raid Devices : 2
  Total Devices : 1
Preferred Minor : 0
    Persistence : Superblock is persistent

    Update Time : Thu Jun 30 09:31:16 2011
          State : clean, degraded
 Active Devices : 1
Working Devices : 1
 Failed Devices : 0
  Spare Devices : 0

           UUID : 496be7a5:ab9177ed:7792c71e:7dc17aa4
         Events : 0.112

    Number   Major   Minor   RaidDevice State
       0       8       17        0      active sync   /dev/sdb1
       1       0        0        1      removed

I've read the story about the manager taking out a disk from a RAID 5 array, and then a second one, but I’d just like to try out for myself what happens when I simply disconnect a disk from a live system. It’s an HP ProLiant DL585 G7 series server, so it must be hot-swappable.

But before I just go for it I thought it might be better getting some input from more experienced folks before doing anything really, really silly.

Hot swapping out a failed SATA /dev/sda drive worked fine, but when I went to swap in a new drive, it wasn't recognized:

[root@fs-2 ~]# tail -18 /var/log/messages
May 5 16:54:35 fs-2 kernel: ata1: exception Emask 0x10 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x50000 action 0xe frozen
May 5 16:54:35 fs-2 kernel: ata1: SError: { PHYRdyChg CommWake }
May 5 16:54:40 fs-2 kernel: ata1: link is slow to respond, please be patient (ready=0)
May 5 16:54:45 fs-2 kernel: ata1: device not ready (errno=-16), forcing hardreset
May 5 16:54:45 fs-2 kernel: ata1: soft resetting link
May 5 16:54:50 fs-2 kernel: ata1: link is slow to respond, please be patient (ready=0)
May 5 16:54:55 fs-2 kernel: ata1: SRST failed (errno=-16)
May 5 16:54:55 fs-2 kernel: ata1: soft resetting link
May 5 16:55:00 fs-2 kernel: ata1: link is slow to respond, please be patient (ready=0)
May 5 16:55:05 fs-2 kernel: ata1: SRST failed (errno=-16)
May 5 16:55:05 fs-2 kernel: ata1: soft resetting link
May 5 16:55:10 fs-2 kernel: ata1: link is slow to respond, please be patient (ready=0)
May 5 16:55:40 fs-2 kernel: ata1: SRST failed (errno=-16)
May 5 16:55:40 fs-2 kernel: ata1: limiting SATA link speed to 1.5 Gbps
May 5 16:55:40 fs-2 kernel: ata1: soft resetting link
May 5 16:55:45 fs-2 kernel: ata1: SRST failed (errno=-16)
May 5 16:55:45 fs-2 kernel: ata1: reset failed, giving up
May 5 16:55:45 fs-2 kernel: ata1: EH complete

I tried a couple things to make the server find the new /dev/sda, such as rescan-scsi-bus.sh but they didn't work:

[root@fs-2 ~]# echo "---" > /sys/class/scsi_host/host0/scan
-bash: echo: write error: Invalid argument
[root@fs-2 ~]#
[root@fs-2 ~]# /root/rescan-scsi-bus.sh -l
[snip]
0 new device(s) found.
0 device(s) removed.
[root@fs-2 ~]#
[root@fs-2 ~]# ls /dev/sda
ls: /dev/sda: No such file or directory

I ended up rebooting the server. /dev/sda was recognized, I fixed the software RAID, and everything is fine now. But for next time, how can I make Linux recognize a new SATA drive I have hot swapped in without rebooting?

The operating system in question is RHEL5.3:

[root@fs-2 ~]# cat /etc/redhat-release
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 5.3 (Tikanga)

The hard drive is a Seagate Barracuda ES.2 SATA 3.0-Gb/s 500-GB, model ST3500320NS.

Here is the lscpi output:

[root@fs-2 ~]# lspci
00:00.0 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP55 Memory Controller (rev a2)
00:01.0 ISA bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP55 LPC Bridge (rev a3)
00:01.1 SMBus: nVidia Corporation MCP55 SMBus (rev a3)
00:02.0 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP55 USB Controller (rev a1)
00:02.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP55 USB Controller (rev a2)
00:04.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP55 IDE (rev a1)
00:05.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP55 SATA Controller (rev a3)
00:05.1 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP55 SATA Controller (rev a3)
00:05.2 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP55 SATA Controller (rev a3)
00:06.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP55 PCI bridge (rev a2)
00:08.0 Bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP55 Ethernet (rev a3)
00:09.0 Bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP55 Ethernet (rev a3)
00:0a.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP55 PCI Express bridge (rev a3)
00:0b.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP55 PCI Express bridge (rev a3)
00:0c.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP55 PCI Express bridge (rev a3)
00:0d.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP55 PCI Express bridge (rev a3)
00:0e.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP55 PCI Express bridge (rev a3)
00:0f.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP55 PCI Express bridge (rev a3)
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control
00:19.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration
00:19.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map
00:19.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller
00:19.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control
03:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Matrox Graphics, Inc. MGA G200e [Pilot] ServerEngines (SEP1) (rev 02)
04:00.0 PCI bridge: NEC Corporation uPD720400 PCI Express - PCI/PCI-X Bridge (rev 06)
04:00.1 PCI bridge: NEC Corporation uPD720400 PCI Express - PCI/PCI-X Bridge (rev 06)

Update: In perhaps a dozen cases, we've been forced to reboot servers because hot swap hasn't "just worked." Thanks for the answers to look more into the SATA controller. I've included the lspci output for the problematic system above (hostname: fs-2). I could still use some help understanding what exactly isn't supported hardware-wise in terms of hot swap for that system. Please let me know what other output besides lspci might be useful.

The good news is that hot swap "just worked" today on one of our servers (hostname: www-1), which is very rare for us. Here is the lspci output:

[root@www-1 ~]# lspci
00:00.0 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP55 Memory Controller (rev a2)
00:01.0 ISA bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP55 LPC Bridge (rev a3)
00:01.1 SMBus: nVidia Corporation MCP55 SMBus (rev a3)
00:02.0 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP55 USB Controller (rev a1)
00:02.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP55 USB Controller (rev a2)
00:04.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP55 IDE (rev a1)
00:05.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP55 SATA Controller (rev a3)
00:05.1 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP55 SATA Controller (rev a3)
00:05.2 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP55 SATA Controller (rev a3)
00:06.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP55 PCI bridge (rev a2)
00:08.0 Bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP55 Ethernet (rev a3)
00:09.0 Bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP55 Ethernet (rev a3)
00:0b.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP55 PCI Express bridge (rev a3)
00:0c.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP55 PCI Express bridge (rev a3)
00:0f.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP55 PCI Express bridge (rev a3)
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K10 [Opteron, Athlon64, Sempron] HyperTransport Configuration
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K10 [Opteron, Athlon64, Sempron] Address Map
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K10 [Opteron, Athlon64, Sempron] DRAM Controller
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K10 [Opteron, Athlon64, Sempron] Miscellaneous Control
00:18.4 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K10 [Opteron, Athlon64, Sempron] Link Control
00:19.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K10 [Opteron, Athlon64, Sempron] HyperTransport Configuration
00:19.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K10 [Opteron, Athlon64, Sempron] Address Map
00:19.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K10 [Opteron, Athlon64, Sempron] DRAM Controller
00:19.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K10 [Opteron, Athlon64, Sempron] Miscellaneous Control
00:19.4 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K10 [Opteron, Athlon64, Sempron] Link Control
03:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Matrox Graphics, Inc. MGA G200e [Pilot] ServerEngines (SEP1) (rev 02)
04:00.0 PCI bridge: NEC Corporation uPD720400 PCI Express - PCI/PCI-X Bridge (rev 06)
04:00.1 PCI bridge: NEC Corporation uPD720400 PCI Express - PCI/PCI-X Bridge (rev 06)
09:00.0 SCSI storage controller: LSI Logic / Symbios Logic SAS1064ET PCI-Express Fusion-MPT SAS (rev 04)