Cache area is lost after a disk failure (3158482)

SmartIO supports one VxFS cache area and one VxVM cache area. If you create one cache area, and the disk fails, the cache area becomes disabled. If you attempt to create a second cache area of the other type before the cache disk group is enabled, then the first cache area is lost. It cannot be brought online.

For example, first you created a VxFS cache area. The disk failed and the cache area is disabled. Now create the VxVM cache area. While creating VxVM cache area, SmartIO looks for an existing default cache area. Due to the failed disk, the existing cache area cannot be found. So SmartIO creates a VxVM cache area with the same name. Now even if disk containing VxFS cache area comes up, SmartIO cannot access the original cache area. In this scenario, the VxFS cache area is lost. Losing the cache area in this case does not result into any data loss or data inconsistency issues.

Workaround:

Create a new VxFS cache area.