topic Smart Array Controller Upgrade in Disk Enclosures

Smart Array Controller Upgrade

Andy Bauer — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 16:44:25 GMT

Hi,
I've got an ML370 with a Smart Array 3200 controller in it. I have one logical volume assigned to a RAID 5 array.

I'd like to upgrade the controller to a Smart Array 5302.

If I upgrade the controller, will my logical drive remain intact or will I have to re-create the RAID volume?

Thanks,
Andy

Re: Smart Array Controller Upgrade

Jefferson Humber — Thu, 03 Aug 2006 04:58:30 GMT

Andy,

From a H/W perspective this should be OK. The array info is stored on the disks, so moving the array should be possible.

This issue you may get is from an O/S driver point of view, since the new card would probably require a different driver.

I believe there are some other threads on this forum in the past which may be of interest to you here.

Jeff

Re: Smart Array Controller Upgrade

Andy Bauer — Thu, 03 Aug 2006 14:32:27 GMT

Thanks for the response Jeff.

I'm currently running Fedora Core 5 and my hunch is that it'll autodetect the 5302 just like it does the 3200. I'll try it find out anyway.

But just to be clear on something.... is the array configuration stored on disk in the same format regardless of model (or manufacturer) of the controller?

For example, Shall I treat this like I would an ext3 partition? It doesn't matter the make or model of the drive the partition is on, an ext3 partition is an ext3 partition.

Thanks,
Andy

Re: Smart Array Controller Upgrade

Jefferson Humber — Thu, 03 Aug 2006 16:11:08 GMT

Andy,

I don't know about any Linux specifics, since I don't use the O/S myself.

As for the array config, it's stored on the RIS partition (RAID Info Sector) of the disks. I think this is a specific feature of the SmartArray controllers and won't be portable between different manufacturers cards.

J