Texas Memory Systems RamSan-300/320 manual System Maintenance, Hot Swapping Power Supplies

Chapter 8 – System Maintenance

One of the main features of the RamSan is the ability to hot swap many of the system components. You can hot swap the power supplies and disk drives, meaning that you can remove and replace these components while the system is running.

8.1 Hot Swapping Power Supplies

The RamSan-3xx series includes two power supplies. The system only requires one functioning power supply to run. Texas Memory Systems has taken special care to enclose the RamSan power supplies in a protective case to minimize the electrical risks for users; however, it is critical for users to follow the following steps when removing and replacing the power supplies:

•Disconnect the power cord from the power supply.

•Wait 15 seconds.

•Remove the power supply that needs to be replaced from the RamSan chassis by pressing the release switch and pulling squarely on the power supply handle. DO NOT REACH INSIDE THE PROTECTIVE ENCLOSURE AFTER REMOVING THE POWER SUPPLY.

•Insert the replacement power supply in the RamSan chassis. Make sure to insert the power supply squarely and press firmly until the power supply is fully inserted into the system.

•Reconnect power to the new power supply.

•The new power supply begins to operate immediately.

Important:

Replace failed power supplies as soon as possible.

8.2 Hot Swapping Disk Drives

The RamSan-320 includes three internal hard disk drives in a RAID configuration. The system can operate with all disks operational, one disk operational, or no disks operational. Two drives are for striped data and the third is for parity information.

If a single hard disk drive fails, the system continues to write to the available hard disk drives. When this occurs, replace the malfunctioning disk with a new hard disk drive. Once inserted, the system synchronizes the new disk. While the restore degrades overall system write performance, read operations continue uninterrupted.

Important:

Do not remove disk drives during synchronization. Removing disk drives may destroy data on all disks, which requires removing and replacing all drives for a complete synchronization with memory.

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