Moving RAID arrays

[Mober]

I have two identical IBM xseries 366 servers, both have RAID capability. I have decided to use one for production and the other as a backup standby server. My question is if my primary server were to fail and I wanted to move either my primary RAID array which would contain my OS and data or my secondary array which would have my backups to my standby server what would I need to do? Thanks in advance.

 

[goombawaho]

I assume they have the same RAID controllers installed. In that case, if you moved both the controller and the drives between computers, it should just start up without a problem. I'd keep the drives in the same locations when moving.

If you only moved the drives and NOT the controller, you would need to start up the controller software and choose the option "read configuration from drives". That would read the hard drives for how they were configured (RAID version, etc.), otherwise things could get ugly.

Let us know if they aren't the same controllers. That wouldn't be as seamless.

 

[Mober]

Yes both servers have the same card. Got it go to controller config and import/read the configuration from disks.

I will need to test this to make sure thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

 

[goombawaho]

That option also works, for example, if your controller died and IBM sends you a new one. Then you can read the config off the disks and keep going with almost no effort. The alternative would be painful - a full RAID Logical drive recreation, reinstall operating system and restore data.