topic Re: HA Group Notification from Secondary Controller (SPARES_LOW) WARNING in ONTAP Hardware

HA Group Notification from Secondary Controller (SPARES_LOW) WARNING

Hinstorff — Wed, 04 Jun 2025 22:11:30 GMT

Hello,

we have a Netapp FAS-2240 with two controllers and HA and this runs since 4 years. Today we get a warning "(SPARES_LOW) WARNING" from our secondary controller. But we take a look to our primary and see two spare disk nad no problemes. This disk are also listed on secondary but not as spare. It something wrong or can i ignore this warning?

Re: HA Group Notification from Secondary Controller (SPARES_LOW) WARNING

SeanHatfield — Mon, 01 Feb 2016 14:08:50 GMT

From your secondary, run aggr status -r and check that it has a spare. Also look for any drives marked failed or reconstructing.

Re: HA Group Notification from Secondary Controller (SPARES_LOW) WARNING

Hinstorff — Thu, 04 Feb 2016 07:50:34 GMT

Hello,

first thanks for your answer.

Actually we have no spares on secondary controller. The spare Disk are only listed as partner disks.

##############

Pool1 spare disks (empty)
Pool0 spare disks (empty)

##############

The two spares are only listed on primary.

##############

RAID Disk   Device     HA SHELF BAY CHAN Pool Type RPM Used (MB/blks)    Phys (MB/blks)
---------   ------     ------------- ---- ---- ---- ----- --------------    --------------
Spare disks for block checksum
spare     0a.00.4    0a    0   4   SA:A   0 BSAS 7200 1695466/3472315904 1695759/3472914816
spare     0a.00.7    0a    0   7   SA:A   0 BSAS 7200 1695466/3472315904 1695759/3472914816

##############

No disk is marked failed or reconstructing. So here my question, must i unassign one spare on primary and take it to secondary?

Example

##############

primary > disk assign 0a.00.7 -s unowned

secondary > disk assign 0a.00.7

Re: HA Group Notification from Secondary Controller (SPARES_LOW) WARNING

SeanHatfield — Thu, 04 Feb 2016 04:33:11 GMT

Must is a strong word. It depends. If your configuration is active/active, then yes assign the secondary a spare. If your configuration is active/idle, there are arguments to be made either way.

Re: HA Group Notification from Secondary Controller (SPARES_LOW) WARNING

Hinstorff — Thu, 04 Feb 2016 07:40:23 GMT

Thanks Sean.

Re: HA Group Notification from Secondary Controller (SPARES_LOW) WARNING

Naveenkumarp22 — Thu, 04 Feb 2016 11:23:59 GMT

Its better to maintain spares on both the controllers. You should maintain 1 spare disk for 30 disks, this the best practice recommended by Netapp.