DL 380 G3 Raid 1 dilemma

[Alvin Wong_4]

Hi all,

My scenario is as follows:

1) DL 380 G3 server is in Raid 1 config, mirrored disk, hardware raid.

2) There are only 2 hard disks.

3) The hard disk 2, i've pulled out in hot swappable mode a few months back

4) Hard disk 1(existing hard disk) is still in there and i've made many changes to it.

5) Hard disk 2 contains data that is inside there a few months back but i don't need it anymore, i want raid 1 with hard disk 1.

6) Assuming if i plug in hard disk 2 now, when the raid rebuild itself, i'm worried that the contents of hard disk 2 will overwrite existing hard disk 1.

7) How can i specify the rebuild? Is there a way to control the array from specifying which hard disk to copy to?

8) Inside the compaq raid software i can see that it's missing hard disk 2 which is correct, can i specify the rebuild there?

9) if it's hot swappable , can i slot in hard disk while server is still up? or do i need to shutdown, plug in and restart? (i'm worried it auto copies over existing hard disk using this method)

Regards,
Alvin

[gringod]

Alvin
When you add the disk 2 back in it will rebiuld.
It will rebuild to what drive 1 is at present.
To be safe once the drive is in go to smartstart and manualy rebiuld the drive 2.
It is hot swapable and you can replace the drive while the server is running.
But you can restart and do it through Smart start if you have the down time.

[Devender Khatana]

Hi,

It eill not overwrite the current contents of the disk1 but infact will overwrite disk2. This will happen because it has allready marked disk2 as removed ( meaning failed) on insertion it expects the disk to be a replacement & that need to be recovered.

If the auto-recovery option is selected & you insert a hot-pluggable disk online, your system could start recovery by itself. If that option is not set or not there in the current settings then you need to do it manually which can be done online as well but on the cost of reduced performance.

HTH,
Devender