Dell PE2650 - RAID 0 - 5 x 33.9Gb 1

[KLewisBPM]

I have a DELL PE2650 with PERC 3/Di inbuilt. There are 5 x 33.9Gb drives in a RAID 0 configuration with total capacity 169.5Gb as drive C:

I cannot believe it is set up like this! (We inherited it)

Only 26gb is being used, it is running Exchange Server and is a Domain Member, DNS Server, Backup Server.

Is there anyway that this RAID 0 conversion can be converted into RAID 5 and retain the data?

Or alternatively can anyone think of a way I could do this, i.e. plug an external HDD, ghost the drive etc etc

I am very twitchy at the moment, Backup exec has been backing up the exchange environment and on 3 occassions the system has crashed with one of the HDD's blinking orange! as soon as you pull the power and plug back in it boots up fine.

Any suggestions on how to solve this would be great!!




KLewisBPM

 

[KLewisBPM]

I forgot to mention I also have a Dell Powervault attached via a PCI PERC 3/d it has 4 73gb HDD's in a RAID 5 configuration. there are still 6 slots left and i have a couple of spare 73gb HDDs.

Perhaps i could make a new Container within the Powervault with these new HDDs and use that as a bootable partition?


KLewisBPM

 

[burtsbees]

No---you can do a reconstruct, but not from a RAID0 to a RAID5, or from a RAID0 PERIOD. Sorry---you're hosed...

Burt

 

[LawnBoy]

You can't convert but all is not lost. You can take an image of the server, reconfigure those RAID0 disks to be a RAID5 container, and then restore the image.

--
The stagehand's axiom: "Never lift what you can drag, never drag what you can roll, never roll what you can leave.

 

[KLewisBPM]

LawnBoy, That sounds good, do you think it would be worth creating a new container on the PowerVault using 2 x 73gb drives to restore the image file to? I could then make that the bootable partition to ensure it is all working! Then reconfigure the original 5 x 33.9gb drives to RAID 5 and put the image back?

As a matter of interest any tips on which imaging software to use?

Thanks

KLewisBPM

 

[LawnBoy]

The image will work straight up as long as there are no drivers that need changed. I've never used a Powervault, but since it is already being used by the server I would assume that the drivers are ok and what you suggest should work. Your method is also safer as no data is destroyed until the duplication is proven.

I really like Acronis for imaging, but it's a bit pricey. The nice thing about Acronis is that you can get their "universal restore" option that will allow you to change drivers when you lay the image back down, which is very handy when changing to different hardware. This option has saved my reputation several times when an old server died and I had to rebuild on a newer machine.

Always, and I mean always, do a full standard backup of the machine before changing the disk structure. Make sure you can rebuild the server through conventional means just in case something goes wrong. I had a Ghost image fail to restore once and I will never get caught like that again.

--
The stagehand's axiom: "Never lift what you can drag, never drag what you can roll, never roll what you can leave.

 

[KLewisBPM]

Thanks Lawnboy - One problem I do envisage with the backup is the fact that it crashes out whilst backing up the Exchange mailboxes.. I have now not backed up the Exchange side of the server for 3 working days an am really concerned! perhaps need to look at trying to diagnose where the fault may lay within exchange, i would hazard a guess its going to be a corrupted mailbox.. if that is the case then i should be able to back all but that one up!... I think this is probably a weekend job!!

Thanks for your input

KLewisBPM

 

[LawnBoy]

One other issue. The new array you create will be smaller than the current array. Make sure that whatever software you use to image with will let you reduce the size of the partition during restore, otherwise the restore will fail. Not sure if Acronis will do this as I've never tried.

--
The stagehand's axiom: "Never lift what you can drag, never drag what you can roll, never roll what you can leave.

 

[burtsbees]

Sorry---I should have suggested imaging myself...

Burt

 

[technome]

If there were capital offenses in the IT realm, the guy who made this raid 0 would earn it. Natural selection should have kicked in before he entered the IT world.
If you image or clone, cloning would be preferred. At least run chkdsk on the raid 0 array before proceeding, cloning/image will likely fail if there are chkdsk errors, normally I would recommend running a consistency check but with the drive "drop out" I would not go there.
Like Lawnboy, I never needed to clone/image with Acronis to a smaller smaller array but there are a number of posts on the web stating it will work. Personally I would clone the raid 0 to a raid 1 created from the spare 73's,( then reverse clone to use the Raid 0 drives recreated as raid 5, if that is your desired result), this is ultimate safety, as the original raid 0 is not crushed until you know the raid 1 boots.
Good luck

........................................
Chernobyl disaster..a must see pictorial

http://www.kiddofspeed.com/default.htm

 

[burtsbees]

I once replaced a drive with a predictive failure in what I assumed was a RAID5, until the server crashed when I pulled the failing drive...it was the customers DC!
I booted it again with the failing drive back in, went into the RAID controller BIOS, and guess what I saw the 4 drives were configured in? RAID0...they were like, "Who would do something like that?!?!?!" My response to myself was, "Apparently...YOU!"

Burt

 

[KLewisBPM]

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the response - i'll keep you up to date on my progress, I just need to plan in the downtime of this server.

burtsbees - The funniest thing is I already purchased a spare replacement drive incase of drive failure, I just assumed it was a redundant Array like all my other servers!! Lesson learnt don't Assume anything!!

There is only one drive affected and it only drops out during the Exchange Backup using Backup Exec 10d.

Cheers



KLewisBPM

 

[KLewisBPM]

I have purchased 6 36gb drives which I am about to put in my Dell Power vault. I'm gonna make a new container with raid 5 which should give me the exact same size as the current server array.

Next i'm going to try and mirror the server array to the new array, make the new one bootable and then reboot!

Does anybody see any flaw in that plan?



KLewisBPM

 

[technome]

Should work fine. Remember to do a chkdsk on the raid 0 before cloning.
If the formatted capacity of the raid 5 is even minisculely smaller, you will need to tell the cloning software to adjust to the raid 5's size.




........................................
Chernobyl disaster..a must see pictorial

http://www.kiddofspeed.com/default.htm

 

[KLewisBPM]

Thanks technome,

its been initialising the new virtual drive for the past 3 and half hours its about 90%...

I downloaded Acronis disk director suite to try... do you know if that is the right software?

cheers

KLewisBPM

 

[technome]

I downloaded Acronis disk director suite to try... do you know if that is the right software?"

It is not.... this is for disk management, link below is the software. If you have Nitrobid handy, use it before you see the price...

http://www.acronis.com/enterprise/products/ATISWin/

Workstation version will not work, you need the server version.


........................................
Chernobyl disaster..a must see pictorial

http://www.kiddofspeed.com/default.htm

 

[KLewisBPM]

Wow! that is quite high!!

What is Nitrobid?

Is the true image trial limited do you know?

KLewisBPM

 

[KLewisBPM]

lol - ok i googled nitrobid!!

KLewisBPM

 

[technome]

For what I remember of the trail version, it will not let you complete the cloning process, letting you go through much of the motions.
Yes it is high but once you have a complicated server setup which will take days to rebuild, it is not that shocking.
Last time I used it, I had a server with SQL/Dynamics on it plus a rebuild would have involved at least 10 program installs, printers, shares, permissions etc plus > 300 changes, far more than a weekend of down time. Basically the price of Acronis was cheap considering it only took 2 hours to clone an old array to a new one..the stress relief alone, was worth the price.


........................................
Chernobyl disaster..a must see pictorial

http://www.kiddofspeed.com/default.htm

 

[KLewisBPM]

I agree with that!

Just thinking ahead.. once it has cloned it to the new partition does it become automatically bootable? I obviously have to change the boot sequence so it sees the new partition first but just wondered if Acronis will indeed make it bootable.

Cheers

KLewisBPM