Can I prevent raid rebuild on smart array controller 641?

[doug henry]

We're running old equipment here. My ML370 G3 has a single 641 with 6 small scsi drives in raid 5. I want to replace all 6 drives with 2 raid 1 larger ones. Seems like it would be simple if I had another SCSI slot for one of the bigger drives, but I don't. I'd like to have both the old system and one of the bigger drives online on the 641 simultaneously. If I pull one of the small raid 5 disks and insert a new big one, the system runs but the 641 uses the new big drive as a replacement disk, and rebuilds the raid 5 on it.
I would like to prevent this rebuild so I can make a new array with the added big disk. How can I do this? thanks

[gregersenj]

No, I don't belive you can stop the rebuild process.
You can stop it, but it will disable the array, so that it will be no good.
The Smart Array can expand and extend.
But I have never heard nor read that it that it can shrink.


The smart array can do raid level migrations.
You could replace all 6 disks to larger disks, and then migrate to RAID 1+0
This is more expensive, but it will give good redundancy and performance.
Same redundancy as RAID 1, but better perfomance

Or you can replace 2 drives one at the time.
You must waite for the rebuild to finish.
the using the ACU create a new logical drive on the empty space (RAID 1), and then clone, just like if you had the possibility to put in an extra controller and more disks.
Beware, from the OS point of view it now has to boot from another drive!
Might require some changes. Ei for windows i the boot.ini, and you might have to leave a small logical disk of ei. 1 MB , for ntldr, ntdetect and boot.ini
You could delete the old logical drive, but
I'm not sure that the logical drive number will change. And you might get in trouble with ei. windows.
It might be possible to to extend the new logical drive later, using the "downward" empty space.

BR
/jag