Can we put RAID disks from one 1850R into another? 1

[neilx2]

We have two Proliant 1850R units. Each of them has four RAID drives. On one machine which we use in production, we have three of the four drive slots filled with 18.2 GB Ultra2 SCSI drives. The fourth slot does not currently have a drive in it.

The OS is Red Hat 7.3. We probably should upgrade, but that's another story.

If we were to have a problem with the 1850R, would it be safe to remove the three drives and insert them into the second unit (with both powered down, of course)?

I think that logically the drives shouldn't care what machine they are in, and the new system would boot and run as if it were the old one. But a coworker expressed concern that because there might be some difference in the hardware, the drives would not work in the second unit (which might even try to reformat them.)

We have another 1850R in production, but this one has four drives. They are all Ultra2 SCSI, but not all the same size. From bottom to top they are 9.1, 9.1, 18.2, and 9.1. Same outdated OS. Same question: Could we safely transfer those drives to a different 1850R if necessary?

Thank you.

 

[spi200]

Hi Neilx2

Your friend is correct in expressing concern, if the servers are different in some significant way. ie Different number of CPU's or Intel versus AMD or very different raid controllers etc, otherwise...
Should be no problem moving the drives from one Compaq server to another, I have done this a number of times on new and old servers. The RAID set configuration is kept on the drives as well as on the controller, so when you swap the drives from one server to another you will receive an alert on boot warning you that the RAID configuration has changed and do you want to continue. This is a warning only (in case the changing of the drives was not intentional) - except the warning and continue, but read every screen carefully. After the initial POST (boot screen) you should be able to go into the ACU (Array configuration Util) F8 I think and view your new raid configuration which should be what it was in the other server.
I have moved RAID sets from different server models as well and usually only require a different Nic driver or something simple, Windows 2003 will even load it itself.
For our critical servers (about 10), we have one server spare sitting in the rack just in case, this is above and beyond our DRS\BCP site configuration where all servers are replicated in real time.

Good Luck,

Dave

 

[phillid2]

I do not know a whole lot about server hardware but I think if you are using a RAID controller, the array may be dependent on the specific controller. I had a Compaq 5300 card with a failed battery and would not let me reboot. I popped a spare 3200 in and it did not recognize the array. I ended up ordering a new 5300, and it did not recognize the array. I exchanged batteries, put the original back in and all is well.

Don Phillips

http://worthingtonengineering.com