Failed Drive Replacement Ticket Note: What to Document After a Drive Swap

A drive swap takes five minutes. The ticket note after it decides whether the next person trusts the array. "Replaced bad drive, array rebuilding" is the note everyone writes and nobody can act on: which drive, which slot, which serial went to the vendor, and did the rebuild actually finish? Without those answers, the RMA stalls, the failed drive becomes a data-classification loose end, and the next tech reopens the same ticket when a second fault appears. This is the note that closes a drive swap for good.

Before you pull the drive: capture the fault evidence

• Hostname + storage context. Server hostname, array/controller name, and the logical volume the drive belongs to. "Slot 4" means nothing without the host it lives in.
• Exact physical position. Slot or bay number, backplane identifier, and which row if the chassis has rows. Photograph the drive bay LEDs before and after — a blink pattern is evidence no one can argue with.
• Old drive identity. Manufacturer, model, capacity, firmware, and the serial number. Copy it off the label before the drive goes into the anti-static bag; once it's in the RMA box, getting the serial takes an extra trip.
• Fault evidence, quoted. The RAID controller or OS status that condemned the drive (predictive failure, SMART threshold, media errors, "drive missing"). Paste the controller output or log line — not your summary of it.
• Array state before the swap. Degraded? How long has it been degraded? A second drive wobbling during the rebuild window changes the risk picture completely — flag it.

The swap itself: what goes in the ticket

1. New drive identity. Model, capacity, firmware, serial number of the replacement. Confirm capacity and firmware compatibility with the array before closing the bezel.
2. Hot-swap or power-down. Record whether the swap was hot or required a shutdown — a cold swap on a running array is a different risk and a different audit trail.
3. Rebuild/resync result. Record the rebuild start time, the completion time, and the final array state (OPTIMAL/HEALTHY) with the verification output pasted in. Close on "array optimal, verified at HH:MM" — never on "rebuild started."
4. Post-swap checks. Controller confirms no new errors, OS sees the full capacity, application-level check (e.g., database or filesystem verification) passes if the procedure calls for one.
5. Failed-drive disposition. RMA number and return tracking if it's going back to the vendor, or the destruction method and certificate if it holds sensitive data. A failed drive without a disposition is a compliance incident sitting in a parts bin.

A drive-replacement ticket note that closes cleanly

Drive swap: db05 (Dell R740, PERC H740P, VD0 data).
Fault: slot 4, bay 2 — predictive failure, SMART threshold
exceeded, controller log 09:12 "PDR 4 predictive failure".
Old: Seagate ST12000NM0127 12TB, FW SN02, SN ZLA4T2KX (photo
of amber LED on file). Array state: DEGRADED since 09:05.
New: same model/cap, FW SN03, SN ZLA9R1QW. Hot swap 09:40.
Rebuild: started 09:42, completed 13:17, array OPTIMAL —
storcli output verified 13:20, no media errors post-rebuild.
Failed drive: RMA #RX-88124 filed, return tracking TRK-5540217788,
shipped in anti-static + RMA box 14:05. Monitoring cleared.

The mistakes that reopen drive-swap tickets

• No serial numbers recorded. Then the RMA gets rejected, the vendor asks which unit failed, and you get to reopen the ticket and dig through the parts bin.
• Closing on "rebuild started." A rebuild that stalls at 12% is not a fixed array. The ticket closes when the array reads OPTIMAL, verified, with a timestamp.
• Wrong replacement drive. Different firmware or a consumer-grade drive in an enterprise array — verify model, capacity, and firmware before the swap, and record the match.
• Slot confusion. Pulling slot 5 when slot 4 is amber turns one degraded array into a dead one. Match the bay to the ticket, photograph the LEDs, and record the position twice.
• Failed drive with no disposition. If nobody wrote down whether it went to the vendor, got destroyed, or is still in the bin, the audit will ask about it.

See RackReady   Free sample   Ticket note examples

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