DL360 G7 with Smart Array P410i - Drive Upgrades

[MIBadger]

I've got a DL360 G7 currently with 2 146G SAS drives in an array under RAID 0. Those drives are in Bays 1 & 2.  My goal is to upgrade the entire system to have 4 300G SAS drives, without losing the current OS installation (and everything it's running of course). I've alreay put 2 300G drives in slots 3 & 4 and set them up as an array with 1 logical drive.

Here is the config in the Array Config Util:

SAS Array A - 1 Logical Drive

-Logical Drive 1 (136.7 GB, RAID 0)

-Unused Space, 136.7 GB

SAS Array B

-Logical Drive 2 (558.7 GB, RAID 0)

I'm aiming to end up with 4 300G drives installed and do RAID 5.

What is the best way (and ideally least painless of course) to get to that point, without losing the current OS setup?

Thanks.

[Torsten.]

If your current configuration supports raid migration, you could put 2 new drives in the server, migrate the RAID0 to RAID1, then swap out the smaller drives and insert the remaining 2 new drives.
You will get the original logical drive but mirrored and additional space.

[MIBadger]

Unfortunately no luck, I've been tinkering with it more for the last couple of hours. It seems like my options are seriously limited in HP's Array Config Utility (GUI).

I now have the following config...

Smart Array P410i in Embedded Slot

-SAS Array A - 1 Logical Drive

-Logical Drive 1 (136.7 GB, RAID 1) - made up of 2 146 GB SAS Drives

-SAS Array B - 1 Logical Drive

-Logical Drive 2 (558.7 GB, RAID 0) - made up of 2 300 GB SAS Drives

The other day I tried a messy and very risky approach...migraded Logical Drive 1 to RAID 0, leaving me with one unassigned drive in Array A. There was no option to remove that drive from that array (thinking was to remove it, pull the drive out, replace with 300 GB and add to Array B), so I just physically removed it. That caused the server to shut down immediately and eventually came back to life after I put the 146 GB drive back in.

Thankfully this is for a school which is closed this week (spring break) so I can easily mess around with it.

Any other suggestions?

Thanks.

--Jeff

[waaronb]

I would have installed the 2 new 300 GB drives and then converted your existing RAID 0 to a RAID 1 using the new drives.

Once you have all 4 300 GB drives in a RAID 1, it should be a simple operation to migrate the RAID level from 1 to 5.  The P410i should support all of that, but I'm going to have to assume you have cache memory and a battery on the controller, otherwise I'm not sure if all of those operations are allowed.

Hope that helps.

EDIT: re-reading the original post, you had 2 x 146 GB drives in a RAID 0.  You *might* be able to add the 300 GB drives into the existing array and migrate to RAID 1 in the process.  But I've never done a migration quite like that before.  If the RAID level you already had was a redundant one, then you can upgrade one drive at a time and let it rebuild, even if the replacement is a larger drive.  But in a RAID 0 you just don't have that option which is unfortunate.

Adding new drives to an existing array is also pretty simple, but adding larger drives into a RAID 0, I'm not sure... unless it lets you migrate the RAID level at the same time.

Whatever the case, it sounds like in your later post that you've somehow moved the 146 drives into a RAID 1 and 2 of your new 300 drives are in a RAID 0.  Those smaller drives in the RAID 1, you should now be able to replace one at a time with a new 300 GB drive and let it rebuild fully, then do the other.

Just be careful with the non-redundant array is all I can say.  Have a backup ready to go just in case. :)

[scharchouf · Accepted solution]

Maybe the solution is to get an Image from your current OS, creat the New RAID Level with the New HDD, Once created you can re-image server with image created

[MIBadger]

I was starting to fear having to go this route, but it makes the most sense and is the path of least resistance.

At the next opportunity (which won't be for another 30 days or so unfortunately) I'll just use Clonzilla to clone the setup. Then work the drive switch (all 4 300GB), and restore the image.

This system was never right from the start (thankfully before my time), so cloning and starting over would give me what I want.

Thanks to all who replied. :-)