raid - HP ProLiant DL360 G5 disk diagnostic issue

We recently got two used drives (15000) and installed on our HP proliant dl360 G5 server. Created RAID1 and used HP SmartStart CD to perform diagnostics.

Interestingly, the Diagnostic tab immidiately fails on Logical drive testing saying the Disk1 should be replaced, while the Test tab successfully runs all the complete tests on both disks and does not find any issue.

At the meantime, when booting to esxi 5, vSphere periodically shows the Disk1 as Unknown and Logical drive in recovery process. This happens every 5-10 minutes.

Here is the log from HP SmartScan diagnostic:

1 - Device, Test: Logical Drive 1, Storage Controller in Slot 0
1 - Description: The controller has reported a critical error in the drive error log.
1 - Recommended Repair: This drive should be replaced.
1 - Failed Count: 44
1 - Error code: F157

There is also another error log record (see below):

2 - Device, Test: test_components/libstorage.so ID
2 - Description: An unexpected exception occurred while performing an operation.
Exception message: CISS_StatusHandler::evaluate: commandStatus = 4 (INVALID); hexdump of CISS_ErrorInfo: 00000000: __ __ 04 __ 20 __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ .... ... ........ 00000010: __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ ........ ........ 00000020: __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ ........ ........ Device: Hard Drive 2, Storage Controller in Slot 0 Property name: Bad Target Count
2 - Recommended Repair: Reboot or restart Insight Diagnostics. Retry the test. If the problem persists, upgrade to the latest version of Insight Diagnostics.
2 - Failed Count: 48
2 - Error Code: F62

Note that rebooting didn't help and I was running the latest diagnostic software version.

Anyone has a clue? Is this a real disk issue? BTW, the controller is Smart Array E200i

Thanks in advance

Answer

Update your firmware.

That's the first step you should take with a system of that vintage, as there have been bugfixes on the Smart Array controller that address issues like yours.

The quickest way to accomplish this is to use the bootable Firmware DVD available from HP. Download it, unzip and burn it to DVD or boot the system via its ILO interface.

Try your array creation after this.

If the firmware change does not help, you may want to try a different set of disks.