B120i Raid Moving To A New Machine

[Andrea-UK]

Hi All,

Apologies if this has been asked before, but could not find it.

I have a ML310E G8 setup with a B120i Raid (4 SSD Drives).

What I would like to be able to do is move this raid set to another machine (Exactly Same Model) in case of problems. e.g. PSU / MB Failure etc..

In this situation I would like to simply remove the drives - insert into new machine and carry on as a form of cold standby.

In previous generations I used a Raid Card so it was simply a matter of removing the card and inserting it into the new machine.

However with the G8, the Raid card is embedded (and good enough for our purposes).

If I simply remove the drives and insert them into the standby server it does not work as the raid configuration remains on the original machine.

So I am left wondering what method I can use to get around this issue.

Many Thanks

[Jimmy Vance · Accepted solution]

Are you sure the 2nd system has the B120i enabled and it isn't just in plain SATA mode? With the "P" series Smart Array controllers, the RAID information is stored on the disks in what is known as the RIS. From what I understand, you should be able to take drives configured on either the B120i or B320i and move them to a "P" series Smart Array.  I would assume the "B" series controllers also store the RAID information in the RIS area on the disks same as the "P" series controllers do.

[Andrea-UK]

Hi Jimmy,

Thank you ver much for your response and indeed it was an issue of RAID Vs SATA.

(BIOS RAID on this sytem - BIOS SATA on the standby system). Still cannot believe that I missed this!

I have just tried and it the raid set works perfectly and will make things much easier if I ever have to move the drives
to the standby system.

Thank you!!