The Predictive Failure Analysis (PFA) This service enables you to monitor the functionality of all PFA-enabled and Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology (S.M.A.R.T.)-enabled disk drives installed locally on your system, or on remote systems within your network. This service monitors both Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) disk drives and Integrated Drive Electronics (IDE) disk drives. With this service, you will be promptly notified when a PFA-message is generated by an enabled drive. Also, you can configure this service to automatically generate an Alert when a PFA message is received.
The following PFA-enabled hard disk drives are supported by Predictive Failure Analysis. Only the listed SCSI hard drives can be monitored or managed by the Predictive Failure Analysis service.
In addition to these hard disk drives, Netfinity Manager and Client Services for Netfinity for OS/2 or Windows NT support PFA-enabled hard disk drives that conform to the self-monitoring analysis and reporting technology (SMART) standard. Support for SMART hard disk drives is available only on systems running Netfinity Manager or Client Services for Netfinity for OS/2 or Windows NT.
Note: Predictive Failure Analysis is available for use only on systems that have one or more PFA-enabled hard disk drives installed.
Each PFA-enabled or S.M.A.R.T. enabled physical drive is represented by an icon in the Predictive Failure Analysis Summary screen. The Predictive Failure Analysis service uses two different icons to help you quickly determine the status of each disk drive.
These icons are:
Solid disk drive
Normal: The drive has not reported any predictive failure analysis
messages.
Shattered disk drive
Warning: The drive has reported one or more predictive failure
analysis messages and may be failing.
Information that will help you identify the drive in question is listed beside its icon.
The following information is included for SCSI disk drives only:
To obtain more detailed information on an individual PFA-enabled drive, or to configure Predictive Failure Analysis service options for an individual drive, select the drive from the Predictive Failure Analysis Summary screen. This will open the PFA Drive Options screen.
The Adapter is the value of the adapter card that the disk drive is connected to.
When Predictive Failure Analysis detects PFA-enabled hard disk drives in your system, it also scans your system for SCSI hard disk drive controllers. The Adapter value is the number of the SCSI adapter to which the PFA-enabled hard disk drive is attached. For example, if your system has two SCSI hard disk drive adapters installed, and each SCSI adapter has one PFA-enabled disk drive attached, you will have two PFA-enabled disk drive objects in the PFA Service screen. The first PFA-drive object would have an Adapter value of 1, because it is the first SCSI hard disk drive adapter detected by Predictive Failure Analysis. The second PFA-drive object would have an Adapter value of 2, because it is the second SCSI hard disk drive adapter detected by Predictive Failure Analysis.
The physical unit number (PUN) and logical unit number (LUN) are values assigned to the disk drive to uniquely identify it within a system.
Note: If an individual physical drive is partitioned into two or more logical drives, each logical drive will have the same PUN, LUN, and physical drive value.
The Physical Drive value is a numeric value assigned to each hard drive unit in your system. These values begin with 0 and increase with each additional hard drive installed (i.e., if you have two hard drives in your system, their Physical Drive values will be 0 and 1).
The Logical Drive value is a letter assigned to each hard drive or partition you create on a hard drive. For example, if you have a 1 gigabyte drive, and you divide this drive into 5 partitions of 200MB each, they will have Logical Drive values of C, D, E, F, and G. However, each Logical Drive will share the same PUN, LUN, and Physical Drive.
Size represents the total formatted size of the physical drive.
Note: Size does not represent space remaining on the individual drive.
Use the PFA Drive Options screen to view additional information about the selected PFA-enabled drive, and to configure Predictive Failure Analysis service options specific to the selected drive. Additional drive information that is available from this screen includes:
The following information is included for SCSI disk drives only:
The following information is included for IDE disk drives only:
The text that will be included when alerts are generated by this service is displayed in the center of this page. Additional text can be added to this message by entering it in the Additional Text for Alert Log field.
Enable the Predicative Failure Analysis service to generate alerts by selecting the Generate Alerts check-box.
The current Status of the selected drive is displayed at the bottom of this window.
This is the name of the disk drive's manufacturer as provided by the disk drive.
This is the manufacturers ID number for the disk drive.
This is the hardware product revision level of the disk drive.
The Alert Text is a short, descriptive message that is sent as part of the alert. This message can be displayed by the Alert Manager as a pop-up alert message, alert log entry, or many other notification methods. The Predictive Failure Analysis alert text will also include any text that you enter in the Additional Text for Alert Log field. For more information regarding alerts and the alert log, please consult the Help for Alert Manager documentation.
Enter any additional text that you want to add to the Alert Text in this field. For example, this additional text could include the telephone of a hardware service provider or of your on-site technical support staff.
If the Generate Alert Check-box is selected, the Predictive Failure Analysis service will generate an Alert when a PFA Error message is reported by the PFA-enabled disk drive. This alert will contain the Alert Text shown in the PFA Drive Options screen as well as any additional text you have entered in the Additional Text for Alert Log field, and will have the Severity value you have selected in the Severity field.
The Severity is a value from 0 to 7, with 0 being the most severe. Severity is one of the Alert Conditions used by the Alert Manager Service to determine proper responses to alerts. For more information regarding alerts, please consult the Help for Alert Manager documentation.
The Status text shows the current status of the drive. If the Status shows that a predictive failure analysis message has been generated by the drive, it will also show the date and time at which the message was generated.
Select Save to save the PFA Options you have configured for the drive.
Select Simulate to generate a simulated PFA error from the drive.
Select Reset Status to reset the status of the selected drive. This will also reset the drives icon in the Predictive Failure Analysis Summary screen.
Select Display Summary to close the PFA Drive Options screen without saving any changes and return to the Predictive Failure Analysis Summary screen.
Select Cancel to abort the current PFA selections without saving any changes to the Predictive Failure Analysis Service.
To exit the Predictive Failure Analysis service, select the "Netfinity " image on the top or bottom of the Predictive Failure Analysis service to return to the Netfinity services screen.