topic Re: Migration: RAID0 to RAID5 in Disk Enclosures

Migration: RAID0 to RAID5

Hemant Tongaria — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 10:07:36 GMT

We have recently purchased an HP Proliant ML350 Server with E200i Controller. The machine we purchased with 72 GB SAS HDDs (3 No's). One support person from H/w vendor came to configure the Windows SBS 2003 Premium R2 on this machine. He reported me that he has configured RAID level 5 on the machine.

After that we have installed MS SQL Server 2005 and SAP Business One on to it.

When last week I ran the "HP Array Configuration Utility", I seen that it there is no RAID configured. It is showing only one single Array with total disk space equivalent to "TWO hard drives." I also seen the Services and NO RAID Service is installed/running there.

My question is:

A) Is there a way of checking which will confirm to me that the RAID5 is properly configured.

B) If currently RAID0 is running is configured then "Can I perform a migration of RAID level from 0 to 5, without any Data Loss and without re-installed the entire stuff.

Please Help.

Re: Migration: RAID0 to RAID5

Marek Nelec — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 10:47:39 GMT

If no RAID would be configured, you will not be able to install the OS. So you do have RAID configured on E200. And from the information you provided it seems that you have RAID-5 (or at least RAID-1 with hot spare). In RAID-5 total disk space is always equivalent to N-1 disks.

Re: Migration: RAID0 to RAID5

Hemant Tongaria — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 14:31:51 GMT

Yes, somewhat I think that RAID5 is configured. When I ran a Utility from "HP System Tools" program group, I recieved a report in zip format.

In one line I found the text:
"Fault tolerance mode: RAID5"

A text version of the same I am attaching with this message. Please analyse this for me. I am worried because on running HP Array Configuration Utility from the HP System Tools Group, it was not showing any RAID configuration.

Re: Migration: RAID0 to RAID5

Marek Nelec — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 17:18:31 GMT

Your ADU report clearly says:
Physical Drives: 3 (number not valid after drive movement)
This Logical Drive: 3 (excluding spare drives)
Fault Tolerance Mode: Distributed Data Guard (RAID 5)

So you definitely have a RAID 5 array.
Within an array you may have more than one logical drive, but in your case (which is typical) you have one. RAID-5 array needs at least 3 physical drives, and as I wrote earlier, in RAID-5 total disk space is always equivalent to N-1 disks, so in your case it's about 144GB (~72GB*(3-1)). If you click on "Array A" in HP Array Configuration Utility, you should see RAID-5 in upper right corner of the ACU. Everything's OK, take care :)