RE: Concurrent maintenance on i5 520 disks -- MIDRANGE-L

The only explanation I can come up with is the same you did -- that on
the new systems with the disk so close together, a person really has to
double or triple-check that they're removing the correct disk drive.
Even with a blinking light, some systems are different than the old ones
(read: disks are upside down, compared to old cages, not just so close
together) and a person can be thrown thinking the light is on whichever
side they're used to.  Then if you're on a deskside 520 - sideways, too!

It does help to look directly at the light tube to get the right light
to really shine brightly - if you're above, below, or to the side it's
hard to see the amber one.  At least in the 5095/0595 expansions, the
lights actually are on the backplane, not on the disk themselves.  I'm
pretty sure the same goes for the CECs as well.

But, all in all I'd chalk this one up to a human error.  Never seen a
system mis-identify a disk unit.  Must tell ourselves (and our ce's as
well) to be more careful with the newer systems - higher-density
packaging and lower-intensity lighting.  Anyone find the system
attention light on your 570s without having the datacenter lights off
yet?  That one's pretty dim.  The 520 and 550 attention light could
blind you from across the room, though.  Handy when making a quick
visual scan of the datacenter.

Justin C. Haase - iSeries System Administrator
Kingland Systems Corporation
voice - 641.355.1031
email - justin.haase@xxxxxxxxxxxx


-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Neil Palmer/DPS
Sent: Monday, February 07, 2005 6:42 PM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Concurrent maintenance on i5 520 disks

Had a customer with a disk that failed in a RAID set on their i5 model
520.  Service Director/Agent  sent in problem log entry, IBM hardware
rep showed up with disk to do concurrent maintenance, went into SST,
flagged the failing disk to get the light to blink  -  pulled the wrong
disk and system went down.

Just wondering if anyone else has experienced this?

Now I can't assign 100% of the blame to the hardware rep.  Some (a lot?)
of the blame for this has to go to the engineers who designed the
packaging for the 4326 (35GB) and similar disks for the 5xx models.  It
is an ABSOLUTELY AWFUL design as far as the placement of the LED light
on the drive goes.  The light is so far away at one end of the disk that
it is very easy to become confused and think the light is for the next
drive.

...Neil
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