The Infoblox 2205 Series appliances ship with four hot-swappable hard disk drives configured in a RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) 10 array. The appliances are designed to provide continuous operation in the event of a failed disk. Hot-swapping a disk drive is a simple process that does not require issuing commands or a Grid Manager operation.

When you replace a failed disk, you must replace it with an Infoblox supplied disk. To ensure that you receive the correct replacement disk, report the disk type or part number of the failed disk. The appliance also displays the disk type in the Detailed Status panel of the Grid Manager. Installing disks that are not qualified and shipped from Infoblox could cause failures in the appliance.

You can access the disk drives from the front of the appliance. Each disk drive weighs about 2 pounds (.90 kg).
You can remove or replace a defective drive without interrupting appliance operations or network services. To remove a disk drive:

1. Identify and verify the failed drive through the Grid Manager, the front panel LCD, or the CLI.
2. If the activity light is green or blinking green, ensure that you have identified the correct drive. Conditions may exist where a drive gradually fails and continues to show green in the activity light.

Caution: Never remove a correctly functioning drive in a live system. If a disk drive fails, remove the failed disk only. NEVER remove two or more disks at once. Removing more than one disk at a time can cause a complete failure of the appliance and require an RMA (Return Material Authorization). All replacement drives must complete the rebuilding process before you can remove another drive. You can log in to the Grid Manager and check the status of the disk drives.

3. Press the release button to release the catch-release lever.

4. Use the catch-release lever to pull the disk about two cm (one inch) to disengage contact, as indicated in Figure 14.

5. Wait about 30 seconds for the disk to completely stop spinning.

Figure 14 Pull the catch-release lever to remove hard drive

6. Remove the disk, extract it from its carrier and handle it with care. Do not drop the disk or ship it loosely in a carton.

7. Securely mount the replacement disk in the drive carrier and replace the carrier in the system.

8. Push the lever down to lock the disk drive in place. The LED next to the disk drive lights up.

9. The disk drive automatically goes into rebuild mode.

Note: IP settings and basic network configurations, such as the gateway address, netmask, Grid secret and Grid name, are saved and restored when you replace a failed disk drive.

Disk Array Guidelines

Infoblox designs the disk array to be completely self managed. No maintenance procedures are required for a normally functioning disk array. Mishandling the disk array can cause an unrecoverable error and result in a failed appliance. Infoblox recommends that you observe the following guidelines:

• Remove only one disk at a time. Do not remove two or more disks from the appliance at the same time. Removing two or more disks at the same time might result in an appliance failure and require an RMA of the appliance. This rule applies to both powered and powered down appliances.
• If the status of the array is degraded, remove the failed or failing disk drive only. Do not remove an optimally functioning drive.
• If your acceptance procedure requires a test of the RAID hot swap feature, remove only one disk drive at a time. You can remove a second disk only after you replace the first disk and the array completes its rebuilding process.
• Do not remove a disk drive if the array is rebuilding. This could result in an appliance failure. Verify the status of the array before removing a disk drive.
• You can hot swap a drive while the appliance remains in production.
• Some conditions may require powering down the appliance to replace a failed unit. This normally happens if the RAID controller detects an error that could damage the array. If you insert a replacement drive into a live array and the controller doesn't recognize the drive, power down the appliance.
• If you inadvertently remove the wrong disk drive, do not immediately remove the disk drive that you originally intended to remove. Verify the status of the array and replace the disk drive that you removed earlier before removing another drive. Removing a second drive could render the appliance inoperable.
• All disks in the RAID array should have the same disk type for the array to function properly.
• In the unlikely event that two disk drives fail simultaneously and the appliance is still operational, remove and replace the failed disk drives one at a time.
• Rebuild time can vary. The rebuild process takes approximately two hours on an idle appliance. On very busy appliances (over 90% utilization), the disk rebuild process can take as long as 40 hours. On a Grid Master serving a very large Grid, expect the rebuild process to take at least 24 hours.
• Replace a failed or mismatched disk only with a replacement disk shipped from Infoblox. When you request a replacement disk, report the disk type displayed in the DetailedStatus panel of the Grid Manager or the Infoblox part number on the disk.

Notes on Disk Replacement

NIOS saves and restores IP settings and basic network configurations, such as the gateway address, netmask, Grid secret and Grid name, when you replace a failed disk drive. The replaceable hard disk contains only user data.
Should the hard disk drive in an appliance stop working for any reason, and the appliance is part of an HA pair, it will come offline and its HA partner system will come online. If the hard disk has an issue and is replaced, the NIOS within the downed system detects the new hard disk and initializes it for NIOS usage.

If the appliance runs in an Infoblox Grid, the system then communicates with the current Grid Master, downloads any remaining configuration, and then automatically rejoins the Grid. In most cases, recovery within an HA pair and in the Grid takes only a few minutes after the hard disk is replaced.

If the appliance runs in stand-alone mode without failover, a backup of the user data must be restored or the system configured from scratch. Infoblox recommends regular backups of standalone appliance data. For more information, refer to Backing Up and Restoring Configuration Files topic in the Infoblox NIOS Administrator's Guide for your system.