Mixed Physical Disk Types - Out of Compliance

What Caused the Problem?

The Mixed Physical Disk Types feature is out of compliance. This problem can occur in the following scenarios:

Scenario 1 (Most common scenario) - The storage array contains a mix of physical disk types (such as Serial ATA (SATA) and Fibre Channel) but the Mixed Physical Disk Types feature is not enabled or is not supported by this storage array. See the Important Notes for more detail on this scenario.
Scenario 2 (Less common scenario) - The storage array MAY or MAY NOT contain a mix of physical disk types, however, you connected physical disks to one or more RAID controller modules where 1) the RAID controller modules were NOT previously attached to any physical disks and 2) the physical disks were already previously configured while attached to other RAID controller modules where the Mixed Physical Disk Types feature was supported and enabled. See the Important Notes for more detail on this scenario.

The Recovery Guru Details area provides specific information you will need as you follow the recovery steps.

Caution: Electrostatic discharge can damage sensitive components. Always use proper antistatic protection when handling components. Touching components without using a proper ground may damage the equipment.

The Recovery Guru Details area provides specific information you will need as you follow the recovery steps.

Important Notes

This problem can occur if you disable a Feature Pack key. Disabling a feature pack key can result in multiple individual features transitioning to an Out of Compliance state since you may have globally lowered the limits supported by the storage array. If there is a Feature Pack Out of Compliance problem in the Summary Area, complete those recovery steps first. If this problem still appears after you complete the Recovery Steps for the Feature Bundle Out of Compliance problem, then proceed with the Recovery Steps below.
Scenario 1 typically happens because you performed one of the following actions:
- Disabled the Mixed Physical Disk Types feature while mixed physical disk types are still present
- Enabled or Disabled a Feature Pack resulting in the storage array not supporting Mixed Physical Disk Types (See first bullet, above)
- Imported physical disks of a different technology from those already residing in this storage array (for example, you add SATA physical disks to a storage array that previously contained only Fibre Channel physical disks) while the Mixed Physical Disk Types feature was disabled
Scenario 2 happens because the RAID controller modules were not previously attached to physical disks, so the RAID controller modules 'adopt' the configuration database of the first physical disk they encounter. When physical disks are adopted by the RAID controller modules, the configuration database contained on the physical disks (which includes all of the information about the previous storage array, including the Enabled/Disabled information of features) is used by the RAID controller modules. Therefore, the information in the configuration database shows that the Mixed Physical Disk Types feature is enabled, but the feature is either disabled on this storage array or not supported by the RAID controller modules. If the RAID controller modules had been previously attached to physical disks and then another set of physical disks are added, then the new physical disks would be 'imported' (overwriting the configuration database) rather than 'adopted' since the RAID controller module is using the configuration database of the existing physical disks.
For Scenario 1, you can fix this problem in two ways:
- You can enable the Mixed Physical Disk Types feature key if it is supported by this storage array
- You can remove the physical disks you recently inserted into the storage array, so that there is only one type of physical disk in the storage array
For Scenario 2, you can fix this problem in two ways:
- You can disable the Mixed Physical Disk Types feature once there is only one physical disk type connected to the RAID controller modules
- You can enable the Mixed Physical Disk Types feature key if it is supported by this storage array
The following events will occur while this feature is in an Out of Compliance state:

This storage array will remain in a Needs Attention state
A critical event will be logged once every 24 hours
Alert notifications will be sent, if configured
You will NOT be able to:
- Create new configuration objects (Automatically or Manually) - such as virtual disks, snapshots, mirror relationships, virtual disk copy pairs, and storage partitions
- Assign hot spares
- Change the segment size of a virtual disk
- Change the RAID level of a disk group
- Expand the capacity of a disk group or virtual disk

Recovery Steps

If...	Then...
This problem occurred due to Scenario 1	Go to Procedure for Scenario 1.
This problem occurred due to Scenario 2	Go to Procedure for Scenario 2.

Procedure for Scenario 1

If...	Then...
You want to resolve this problem by enabling the Mixed Physical Disk Types feature key	Go to step 2.
You want to resolve this problem by removing physical disks until all physical disks are of the same type	Go to step 3.

Select the Storage Array >> Premium Features menu option in the Array Management Window.

If...

Then...

The Mixed Physical Disk Types feature appears in this dialog (regardless of status)

A separate Feature Key File is needed to enable the Mixed Physical Disk Types feature. If the Mixed Physical Disk Types feature has already been enabled at any time for this storage array, you should already have a Feature Key File. Otherwise, you will need to perform the following:

Retrieve the Feature Enable Identifier from the Premium Features dialog.
Contact your technical support representative to request a Feature Key File.
Once you have located your existing Feature Key File or obtained the appropriate Feature Key File from your technical support representative, click the Enable button to enable it.

When you are finished enabling the feature, go to step 5.

The Mixed Physical Disk Types feature does NOT appear in this dialog

Your storage array cannot support the Mixed Physical Disk Types feature.

It is possible that you can upgrade to a Feature Pack that will allow support for the Mixed Physical Disk Types feature. You can contact your technical support representative to see if your storage array can be upgraded to a different Feature Pack, or you can go to step 3 to remove the extra physical disk type now.

If...

Then...

The physical disks you inserted do not have any disk group data

The physical disks you inserted have disk group data but you have NOT yet imported the disk groups into this array (the disk groups appear as Contingent virtual disks in the Logical View)

Go to step 4.

The physical disks you inserted have disk group data and you have already completed the Import operation for the disk groups into the storage array.

a	From the Logical View, highlight a disk group that resides on the physical disks you recently imported, and then select the Advanced >> Maintenance >> Export Disk Group menu option. Follow the instructions in the Export Disk Group dialog to properly export the disk group from the storage array.
b	Repeat step a for every disk group that resides on the physical disks you recently imported until all the disk groups on the physical disks have been exported.
c	Go to step 4.

Remove the physical disks or disconnect the expansion enclosures that you recently inserted that contain the different type of physical disks.

Click the Recheck button to rerun the Recovery Guru. The failure should no longer appear in the Summary area. If the failure appears again, contact your technical support representative.

Procedure for Scenario 2

If...	Then...
You want to use multiple physical disk types in this array (you want to enable the Mixed Physical Disk Types feature)	Go to step 2.
You DO NOT want to use multiple physical disk types in this array (you want to disable the Mixed Physical Disk Types feature)	Go to step 3.

Select the Storage Array >> Premium Features menu option in the Array Management Window.

If...

Then...

The Mixed Physical Disk Types feature appears in this dialog (regardless of status)

Retrieve the Feature Enable Identifier from the Premium Features dialog.
Contact your technical support representative to request a Feature Key File.
Once you have located your existing Feature Key File or obtained the appropriate Feature Key File from your technical support representative, click the Enable button to enable it.

When you are finished enabling the feature, go to step 7.

The Mixed Physical Disk Types feature does NOT appear in this dialog

Your storage array cannot support the Mixed Physical Disk Types feature.

If...	Then...
There are currently different physical disk types connected to the RAID controller modules	Go to step 4.
All of the physical disks connected to the RAID controller modules are the same physical disk type	Go to step 6.

If...

Then...

The physical disks you inserted do not have any disk group data (they are empty physical disks)

Go to step 5.

The physical disks you inserted have disk group data

a	From the Logical View, highlight a disk group that resides on the physical disks you recently imported, and then select the Advanced >> Maintenance >> Export Disk Group menu option. Follow the instructions in the Export Disk Group dialog to properly export the disk group from the storage array.
b	Repeat step a for every disk group that resides on the physical disks you recently imported until all the disk groups on the physical disks have been exported.
c	Go to step 5.

Remove the physical disks or disconnect the expansion enclosures that you recently inserted that contain the different type of physical disks.

Disable the Mixed Physical Disk Types feature.

a	Select the Storage Array >> Premium Features menu option in the Array Management Window.
b	Select the Mixed Physical Disk Types feature from the list.
c	Click the Disable button.
d	Go to step 7.

Click the Recheck button to rerun the Recovery Guru. The failure should no longer appear in the Summary area. If the failure appears again, contact your technical support representative.