5.8. Replacing a Disk for a Plexed Volume

The procedure described in this section outlines the steps you must take when you find you need to replace a disk that contains a part of a plexed volume element. The example used is for a disk that is used for a plexed volume element. If you have a different disk setup, the XLV commands will be the same, although the specific procedures for physically replacing a disk will differ.

In summary, to replace a disk for a plexed volume, perform the following steps:

  1. Remove the volume element with the broken disk from XLV

  2. Physically replace the disk drive

  3. Remake the XLV volume element using the new drive

These steps are detailed in the following sections.

5.8.1. Remove the Volume Element from XLV

In this example, the failed disk is drive ID 6 (dks2d6s7), which is in vol2 (plex 0). This example also assumes that there are two plexes, and that each plex has only a single volume element. The sample commands provided are for this specific disk failure example.

  1. Delete the plex (or volume element) containing the broken disk from the volume (in this case vol2). This command sequence detaches the plex and renames it badplex.

    # xlv_mgr
    xlv_mgr> detach plex vol2.data.0 badplex

  2. Execute the following commands. The -force option performs a detach operation when the parent object is missing any pieces.

    xlv_mgr> detach -force plex vol2.data.0 badplex
    xlv_mgr> delete object badplex

  3. Unmount the file system, killing processes that have open files.

    # unmount -k /fs2

  4. Save the volume configuration, using the -write option of the xlv_mgr script command. You will need this information when you remake your volume, as described in step 6.

    The xlv_mgr script command displays the xlv_make(1M) commands you need to create the volume. See the xlv_mgr(8) man page for further information. The -write option saves the commands into the specified file location; you do not need to use this option if you record the command output yourself.

    If xlv_mgr cannot read the XLV label off of the disk, the script command may not work. In this case, you will need to use the volume configuration information you saved as part of regular system backup and maintenance.

  5. Delete the volume object:

    xlv_mgr> delete object vol2

  6. Remake the volume without the broken disk.

    In this example, the volume v2 was created with the following command sequence:

    # xlv_make
    xlv_make> vol2
    xlv_make> data
    xlv_make> plex
    xlv_make> ve dks2d6l3s7
    xlv_make> plex
    xlv_make> ve dks3d6l3s7
    xlv_make> end
    xlv_make> exit
    To remake the volume without the broken disk, execute the following command sequence:
    # xlv_make
    xlv_make> vol2
    xlv_make> data
    xlv_make> plex
    xlv_make> ve dks3d6l3s7
    xlv_make> end
    xlv_make> exit