RAID Migration - HP DL380 - Correct Procedure?

[gavm99]

Hi all,

I have 3 new disks for a HP DL380.

I would like to keep the servers current OS and Data intact.

What is the correct procedure for adding the new disks to the existing RAID without data loss?

Thanks in advance.

 

[spi200]

Hi
Do you want to replace three disk in the RAID set or do you want to add 3 disk to your raid set. Both can be done on a DL380 with the extend\expand option in the Array config utility.
What's the RAID level ?
What is the operating system ?
How many partitions do you have? eg Primary extended etc.

I have expanded RAID arrays on DL380's with both Netware 5.1 and Windows 2003 SP1 a number of times. I had one failure years ago on Netware 5.1 which I put down to a early BIOS revision, so make sure you have the latest BIOS for your controller and of course a good backup. You can even convert for say RAID1 to RAID 5 if you have the right amount of disks without losing any data. When playing with arrays when it goes wrong it really goes wrong and your vendor will just tell you to restore.

There are a number of other threads of this forum or the Compaq forum which you can read as well.
I have found different versions of the Array config Utility where there is different wording of the Expand and extend options, but basically they do the same job.
There are also a number of after market products which make it resizing RAID arrays and OS partitions simpler, but it can be done with existing utils for Netware and Windows.

Anyway let us know what you have any we will try to help out.


Regards

David

 

[gavm99]

Hi there,

I have more information now and details of what I want to do.

At the moment there is one disk in the server which has 2 partitions - BOOT and DATA.

The idea is to add the 3 new drives so they are a new RAID5 set. The DATA partition would then be copied to the new RAID. The DATA partition would then be deleted and the BOOT partition would be expanded to fill this single disk. I realise this means the OS is on one disk with no redundancy but the customer is ok with this.

I am not sure if all the above is possible? I think deleting the DATA partition and resizing BOOT is not possible.

Can anyone add any ideas or thoughts to this?

Thanks.

 

[spi200]

Hi

You are correct that the boot partition cannot be resized\expanded without the use of after market tools. You could easily create another partition on that drive and use it for your swap file etc.
The RAID5 set is no problem as it will be created completely new and will just be another windows partition which you can copy your data to.

Good luck

Dave

 

[gavm99]

Hi Dave,

Sorry to bother you again, but I want to be sure of all my options before I proceed. Can you tell me if this is possible:

At present there are 2 disks of 72.8GB. There is a BOOT partition of 10GB and a DATA partition of 58GB. They are RAID1.

Can I install the 3 new 146GB disks and migrate the whole RAID1 set to RAID5 and therefore take advantage of the additional disk space?

Let me know your thoughts asap as I'm on site today!

Thanks.

 

[spi200]

Hi

Sorry, I did not see your post until now.
You can not turn your 2 disk raid 1 into a RAID 5 effiently. There are a number of options from getting from RAID 1 to RAID 5 with the config you have, but its best you do what you originally said that you were going to create a new Raid set and copy your data over to it. That way you have your RAID 1 left for your OS and swap file which is good as it is nice and fast - just what swap files should be.
Hope this helps

Dave

 

[gavm99]

Hi Dave,

Yes thats basically what I did in the end.

I kept the existing RAID1 for the OS and set up my 3 new disks in a RAID5. I then transferred the data from the data partition on the RAID1 set to the new RAID5. The old data partition is now being used by in house IT for installation packages and admin.

Thanks.