On Lsilogic adapters. OEM to Dell and Intel.....
With raid 1 it is possible to change the stripe size after a scsi raid 1 array is fully functional, with no loss of data. I tried all the stripe sizes between 2K and 256K. Takes very little time. There is no "rebuild" involved.
I have not tested this on raid 10, but it should work , this will not work on raid 5
I suggest you do this on a lab machine, before trying it on a production server.
From within Windows, go to the raid software interface, and backup the configuration onto floppy. You should already have the raid documented.
For total safety you could use this method, aside from a full backup.
The golden rule for this procedure...... DO NOT INITIALIZE !!!!!!!!
First, if you have multiple array find out which array the system boots from. From the raid bios console, choose logical drives, properties, the info is noted on this page.
Go into the raid bios setup console, choose logical drive from the main menu, go into this, highlight your raid 1 array, go to properties, document the settings on this page... the channel and disk IDs of the drives involved, the number of megabytes of the array.
From within the properties page, choose the raid 1 array you want to modify the stripe size for, delete it. Yes, I did mean delete it. If you have more than one array on an array adapter you must delete the correct logical drive. There will be a warning your data will be lost; NOT so if you follow the procedure below.
Go to the configuration wizard, Go into add configuration, leave it at custom configuration
Mark both drives which belonged to the original raid 1 logical drive, which are in the ready state, CTL key and highlight the drives, hit the "accept" the configuration, hit next
This bring you to the screen which you configure the array, the logical drive definition screen
In the logical drive definition screen, on the right pane make sure the new raid 1 is highlighted.
In the left panel, you must chose raid 1 not any other raid type, set your new stripe size, then in the last box, you must fill in the number of megabyte of the raid 1, and accept it, via the accept button just below the area where you manual fill in the megabytes. A screen will come up asking to save the configuration, save it.
When a screen comes up asking to initialize the array, choose NO. !!!!!!!!!
Under NO circumstances do you initialize the drive, you will lose all data if you initialize the drive. ( Basically the "new" raid 1 must match your previously documented setting except for the stripe size.)
If you have multiple array sets, go into the logical drive menu and check that the "set boot drive" is correct logical array to boot from.
Go back to the main menu , go into logical drive, choose the raid 1, properties, check that the setting match to original raid 1, except for the stripe size.
Exit out of the setup
Reboot..... your stripe size is changed
........................................
Chernobyl disaster..a must see pictorial
With raid 1 it is possible to change the stripe size after a scsi raid 1 array is fully functional, with no loss of data. I tried all the stripe sizes between 2K and 256K. Takes very little time. There is no "rebuild" involved.
I have not tested this on raid 10, but it should work , this will not work on raid 5
I suggest you do this on a lab machine, before trying it on a production server.
From within Windows, go to the raid software interface, and backup the configuration onto floppy. You should already have the raid documented.
For total safety you could use this method, aside from a full backup.
The golden rule for this procedure...... DO NOT INITIALIZE !!!!!!!!
First, if you have multiple array find out which array the system boots from. From the raid bios console, choose logical drives, properties, the info is noted on this page.
Go into the raid bios setup console, choose logical drive from the main menu, go into this, highlight your raid 1 array, go to properties, document the settings on this page... the channel and disk IDs of the drives involved, the number of megabytes of the array.
From within the properties page, choose the raid 1 array you want to modify the stripe size for, delete it. Yes, I did mean delete it. If you have more than one array on an array adapter you must delete the correct logical drive. There will be a warning your data will be lost; NOT so if you follow the procedure below.
Go to the configuration wizard, Go into add configuration, leave it at custom configuration
Mark both drives which belonged to the original raid 1 logical drive, which are in the ready state, CTL key and highlight the drives, hit the "accept" the configuration, hit next
This bring you to the screen which you configure the array, the logical drive definition screen
In the logical drive definition screen, on the right pane make sure the new raid 1 is highlighted.
In the left panel, you must chose raid 1 not any other raid type, set your new stripe size, then in the last box, you must fill in the number of megabyte of the raid 1, and accept it, via the accept button just below the area where you manual fill in the megabytes. A screen will come up asking to save the configuration, save it.
When a screen comes up asking to initialize the array, choose NO. !!!!!!!!!
Under NO circumstances do you initialize the drive, you will lose all data if you initialize the drive. ( Basically the "new" raid 1 must match your previously documented setting except for the stripe size.)
If you have multiple array sets, go into the logical drive menu and check that the "set boot drive" is correct logical array to boot from.
Go back to the main menu , go into logical drive, choose the raid 1, properties, check that the setting match to original raid 1, except for the stripe size.
Exit out of the setup
Reboot..... your stripe size is changed
........................................
Chernobyl disaster..a must see pictorial
