SPAREΒΆ

SPARE Displays information about the spares in the system.

This command is used to change the configuration settings for the spare background diagnostics in the system. The command will display the current spare configuration settings as well as task status. The INFO parameter can be used to display all of the information about a specific spare in the system. The default output will provide a snapshot of the current test status of all spares, any tests in progress, and the status of the spare task. Spare diagnostics are automatically disabled when the unit is in a failed state. When the diagnostics are started, a search algorithm is run to select a disk for testing. Disks will be selected with the following restrictions:

  1. the disk must pass diagnostics, ie. cli command disk diag
  2. the disk has not been tested within the present calendar month

If no disks are found for testing within the search algorithm, the test software will sleep for 24 hours before searching for disks to test again. If the user wants to force a new search algorithm to run, the spare start command can be executed and that will awaken the test software immediately.

CLEAN[=tc]

This parameter will erase any previous test data stored on the disk. The disk is specified by its physical tier and channel locations, ‘tc’, where:

  • ‘t’ indicates the tier in the range <1..128>, and
  • ‘c’ indicates the channel in the range <ABCDEFGHPS>.
COVERAGE=x

This parameter sets the spare diagnostic coverage of the blocks being tested as a percent of the total number of blocks available for test. Note that increasing the coverage to higher numbers means that more blocks on the disk will be tested for better coverage but it also will take a longer time for the test to complete. This parameter can be tuned to provide an optimal test time for a single disk in the system such that all spares are tested in a reasonable amount of time. The parameter is limited to a discrete set of values. The valid parameters for ‘x’ are [1, 5, 10, 20, 40, 80, 100] Percent.

Default is 1 Percent.

DELAY=x

This parameter sets the system spare diagnostics delay. The test delay determines how long a test operation will pause after it reaches the test EXTENT. This parameter slows down the spare test so it will not affect the performance of the system. Any changes applied to delay will affect tests in progress as well as future testing. This system spare diagnostic delay value is given in 100 millisecond increments. The valid range for ‘x’ is 0..10 which translates into a time delay of 0..1 seconds in 100 millisecond increments.

The default is 0.

EXTENT=x

This parameter sets the spare diagnostic extent in MiB. The diagnostic extent determines how much data can be tested before the test must sleep. This parameter slows down the test operations so they will not affect the performance of the system. Increasing the EXTENT will allow more data to be tested in a single pass. Any changes applied to extent will affect tests in progress as well as future testing. The valid range for ‘x’ is 1..32 MiB.

Default is 8 MiB.

INFO[=tc]
This parameter displays the information and status about a specific spare in the system. The disk is specified by its physical tier and channel locations, ‘tc’, where: ‘t’ indicates the tier in the range <1..128>, and ‘c’ indicates the channel in the range <ABCDEFGHPS>.
PATTERN=x

This parameter sets the system spare diagnostics pattern. The test pattern determines the pattern written to the disks during the test. The system supports the following patterns:

  • UNIQUE - includes unique information including timestamp
  • AA - A pattern of 0xAA is written to each byte
  • 55 - A pattern of 0x55 is written to each byte
  • FF - A pattern of 0xFF is written to each byte
  • 00 - A pattern of 0x00 is written to each byte
  • COUNTUP - A pattern of counting up is written to each byte
  • COUNTDOWN - A pattern of counting down is written to each byte

The default is UNIQUE.

Note

Tests in progress are not affected by this parameter setting. Changing the pattern only applies to tests started after the parameter was modified.

PAUSE
This parameter will pause any ongoing diagnostic operation only on the unit from which the command is run. If a test is being run from the other unit in a dual, the pause command will NOT affect that test.
RESUME
This parameter will release any paused diagnostic operations and allow them to continue only on the unit from which the command is run. If a test has been paused on the other unit in a dual, the RESUME command will NOT affect that test.
START
This parameter will start the spare diagnostics task if it is not running. Note that this will start diagnostics on both units in a dual as this is a system parameter.
STOP
This parameter will abort any ongoing diagnostic operations. Note that this command will stop them and then the task will be idle until the RESTART command is executed. Note that this will stop diagnostics on both units in a dual as this is a system parameter.