HDD Upgrade/Downgrade

[Ayman Altounji]

I have 2 Proliant 1600 Servers that have a Raid 5 configuration and with 2DH Controllers. Server1 (2 - PIII600's) has 4 - 4.3Gb drives and Server2 (1- P500) has 4 - 9.1Gb drives. Can I swap drives, one at a time so that they can sync and then run the array configuration utility without losing any existing data? Basically I want to move the larger drives to the higher horsepower server1 and move the smaller drives to the lower horsepower server2. Please advise.

[Sunil Jerath]

Hello,
Yes it is possible but make SURE that the System BIOS and firmware of the controllers is uptodate before any movement takes place. Do not forget Full BACKUP of your data!!! Do not move just one HDD 'cos this way you will be breaking your RAID set. You can move all the HDDs in one shot alongwith the controller for better results because the array configuration information is stored on the HDDs locally.
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Regard,