Determining the IBM i disk drive protection status

To determine the protection status of the disk drives in your IBM® i system or logical partition, follow these steps from the System Service Tools (SST) display:

1. Sign on with at least service level authority.
2. Type strsst on the command line of the IBM i session and press Enter.
3. Type your service tools user ID and service tools password on the Start Service Tools (STRSST) Sign On display. Press Enter.
   Note: The service tools password is case-sensitive.
4. Select Work with disk units from the System Service Tools (SST) display. Press Enter.
5. Select Display Disk Configuration from the Work with Disk Units display. Press Enter.
6. Select Display Disk Configuration Status from the Display Disk Configuration display. Press Enter.

   A list of each auxiliary storage pool (ASP) displays, showing the disk drives that are members of the ASP. The Status column shows one of the following protection statuses for the ASP:

   • Mirrored. These ASPs are configured for mirrored protection. If the failing disk drive has mirrored protection, record the status of both disk drives in the mirrored pair. You need this information in the recovery procedure.
   • Unprotected. An ASP with a status of Unprotected might contain disk drives that are device parity protected. Record the status of the failing disk drive as it is shown in the Status column of the Display Disk Configuration Status display.

     A disk drive with one of the following statuses has device parity protection only if all other disk drives in the array are operational:

     • DPY/Active
     • DPY/Failed
     • DPY/HDW Failure
     • DPY/Degraded
     • DPY/Power Loss
     • DPY/Not Ready
     • DPY/Unknown

     A disk drive with any other status (such as DPY/Rebuild or DPY/Unprotected) does not have device parity protection.

     Examples:

     • Suppose one disk drive has a status of DPY/Failed while all other disk drives have a status of DPY/Unprotected. In this case, only the disk drive with the DPY/Failed status is protected. Servicing the failed disk drive does not result in data loss. Removing any of the unprotected disk drives might result in data loss.
     • All disk drives have a status of DPY/Active or DPY/Degraded, therefore, all disk drives are protected. In this case, exchanging any disk drive does not result in data loss.
     Tip: For more information about the meaning of a status for any disk drive, use the Help key on the display.