Converting W2k server from Mirroring to RAID 5

[cwhitesock]

We have a Windows 2000 production server (IBM Xseries 340) that is currently configured for mirroring. It has 3 36gig drives and hence we only have 36gigs of free space to use.

We are running out of room and need to upgrade. I plan on getting 3 73gig drives and configuring them for RAID 5. We have a IBM ServeRAID 4Lx Controller. I am wondering if how hard, and what steps I need to take into consideration.

I have to backup all data currently, install the new drives, configure for RAID 5, and then restore all data back to the new drives.

We do have Symantec Ghost, and were thinking about doing a Ghost for the restore. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[hjm3857]

Ghost would be faster and cleaner that a backup and restore, although you need to be prepared with a backup just in case. You are going to be faced with a time issue because of the size of the "DISK" you are copying. I don't know if they have fixed it, but if you upgraded your disks to dynamic, I think you are out of luck with ghost. Last I saw, ghost didn't see anything to copy with a dynamic disk. As to any other options, because of the major differences in mirroring and striping, there is not easy migration method unless you have a spare disk, other than the one that will be your raid 5 parrity disk. If you do, and if you have enough drive slots, you could fial one drive in the mirror, build your final RIAD 5 array, and ghost the 1 disk strait onto the raid 5 arraym (If ghost will work). ghosting within a local machine is much faster than ghosting across the network. You would then remove the 1 remaining drive from the original array, fix the active partion, and off you go. That would leave you with a fully functionaly copy of the server in the event of a problem with the image.

I don't know if any of that was worth the screen it will be viewed on, but it was free.


Jay Mosser
jaym@optymgroup.com