Upgrade from nothing to RAID 0,1 and 5

[massctrl]

Hi all,

A W2K domain controller with AD is installed on 1 SCSI harddisk and works fine. This configuration needs to be upgraded towards a hardware raid system.

The server is a HP ML 330,

The RAID controller newly installed is a Smartarray 641 ALL

What is the best way without any loss of data to get everything booted on the RAID controller.

I know once the harddisk boots on the raid controller in raid 0 (since it's only 1 disk) it' piece a cake to upgrade towards raid 1 and raid 5

Thus the problem is to get the disk running on the raid controller without loss of data

Thanks in advance

 

[ntinlin]

Not possible AFAIK unfortunately.

Could use Ghost perhaps.
Ghost HDD.
Attach to RAID which will wipe it and create new array.
Re-image.

However you will have to pre-install the driver for the RAID controller. Can't remember where I saw the procedure for that unfortunately. Try the HP/Compaq server forum.

 

[dvannoy]

you can do this if you have the smart controller(compaq) it will let you do RAIDS on the fly. it will let you add and remove drives without redoing the array

 

[marvhuffaker]

I don't think you can take a Non-raid hdd, and attach to a smart-raid controller, and still see the data.. It will not recognize anything, and when you use the utilities to create the logical drives in whatever configuration, it will wipe the existing config.

Now, as far as what dvannoy said, this is true if you already have a RAID config setup with a logical drive already on it.. but you don't have that right now so I'm afraid you're out of luck.

Definitely get a solid backup of everything, and then contact HP and have them give you options.

What about attaching other drives to the raid controller, then migrating the data? just a thought.

Marvin Huffaker MCNE, CNE
Marvin Huffaker Consulting

http://www.redjuju.com

 

[massctrl]

Hi guys

thanks for the answers, i must say that Marvin has the correct answer here,

To solve the custommer's problem i did a backup/restore. Ok it took some time but everything is working.

Now i did some tests on a test server with a 642 smartarray contoller.

And no luck so far, data got corrupted....etc

so backup/restore did it for me