restoring a raid configuration

[lynxms17]

I currently have an ML370 w/a 431 RAID controller in a RAID5 configuration using 6 36 gig drives. I will be changing this to use 6 new 36 gig drives. I???m going to use Storage Manager to image my server and restore to the new RAID.

My question is ... If I pull the existing 6 drives out, put in my new drives, reconfigure the controller to use 5 drives as online and 1 drive as an off line spare, if my restore goes bad ??? will I be able to put my original 6 drives back in and reconfigure the controller back as tho nothing ever happened?

[Janine Bertolo]

Hi Jim;

Yes - you can do that.

All the pertinent drive array configuration information is held on the hard drives themselves.

The 431 controller will take its queue from them.

You can always run a system erase without the hard drives attached to completely reset the controller and bios of the server before adding your old set of drives back into the system, but that is not usually necessary.

It's also a good idea to keep your original set of drives in the correct order and return them to the server that way.

Good Luck!

Janine