Hi Hashem,
The difference between "unused" and "offline" is that the former describes the actual role or usage of the drive and can be controlled by the user (e.g. via "chdrive -use" command), whereas the latter just describes the current state of the drive as a member in the raid config and is typically influenced by external circumstances. You may notice that the chdrive command only offers the usage types "unused", "candidate", "spare", "failed" - there is no "offline" usage type; the "offline" status is merely a consequence of the usage setting.
The confusion may come from the fact that the GUI offers the "take offline" option - but in fact what it is doing in the background is to set the usage type to "failed" which in consequence sets the drive into status offline. And most of the usage types can only be modified as long as the drive is not actively taking part in the (RAID)-Config, i.e. when the status is offline.
So in your case the "take offline" task is the initial step to stop the drive from operating actively. At this point in time it is however still part (as inactive member) of the raid config. That means that the Storage Virtualize Code may still expect the drive to come back as active member at some point.
At the moment you manually change the usage type to "unused", you actively remove that drive as member from the raid config. If you physically remove the drive without setting it to "unused", it may result in a so called "ghost drive", where the raid config still contains the drive id as a member that is however no longer physically there.
So in your case you can just go and take the drive offline via gui and then set the usage to "unused" to prepare it for a clean removal.
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Philipp Wachtler
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Original Message:
Sent: 07/01/26 06:24 AM
From: Hashem Al-Qaisi
Subject: remove candidate disk form FS7200
Hi Uwe,
yes, the 2 drives from FS7200 , they are from same type.
my question is , should I select "unused" or "offline" and what is the difference?
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Hashem Al-Qaisi
Senior Systems Engineer
Jordan Business Systems
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Original Message:
Sent: 07/01/26 03:54 AM
From: Uwe Schreiber
Subject: remove candidate disk form FS7200
Hello Hashem,
Are the 2 drives you want to move to a FS7200 storage installed in a FS7200, or is it a different type of FlashSystem?
You can set this 2 drives from "Candidate" to "Unused" state, either via GUI or CLI (command .. "chdrive -unused <drive-id>"
You can safely remove them, when the drives are in state "Unused".
The drives shoud get discoverd when you put them in the FS7200. After discovery you may have to set them into "Candidate" status for further usage in an existing array or for defining a new array.
To expand an existing DRAID array you can either use the GUI or the CLI command "expandarray"
https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/flashsystem-7x00/9.1.2?topic=arrays-expanding-mdisk-in-distributed-array
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Uwe Schreiber
System Engineer / Solution Architect
SVA System Vertrieb Alexander GmbH
Wiesbaden
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