ML350 G3 - Adding hard disks

[MyName isNobody]

Hello. I've got that ML350 G3 with that hotplug disk bay with 3 disks in it. Following the manual, the big boss who installed it has put the three disks in the inverse order, starting from the top... lol
But that's not the problem, as the server goes good that way.
I want to add two disks that will be taken every time the business is closed (nights and week-ends). There will be backups on that disks.
I think there is no problem to do that, but have still some questions :
- first : will it make a problem for the server to run without two disks every nights and every week-ends? (obviously i will program nothing to save on that disks on that times...)
- second : is windows 2003 server capable of software mirroring? is it better to make automatic copies? i haven't verified but i think there is no raid controler.
- third : excuse me for my english!! ;)

I DO THANK YOU for your answers...

[sandeep_raman · Accepted solution]

Hello MyName isNobody,

From what you are saying it sounds like there's a scsi controller on the server.
However as per the quickspecs,a smart array 641 controller is shipped as standard with array models.
Please confirm this to proceed.

SRH

[MyName isNobody]

It seems that it has a card named "smart sa642" but i haven't investigate yet (i'm not near the server till tomorow but i need to be sure of myself before tomorrow!)
i know about that card because it's written on the bill

is it a raid controller? or what is it?
I DO THANK YOU AGAIN for your answers ;)

[sandeep_raman]

Well,life is easy if its a 6402 card which is a raid controller.

1.Plug the new disks,launch HP ACU.
Start -> Prgms -> HP System Tools -. HP Array Configuration Utility

2.Now ACU will have 2 unused physical disks

3.Create a new array Array B and select the 2 new disks

4.Once array is created,select the new array Array B and create a new logical volume with Raid 1(i think thats what the desired raid is) and mark the disks(disk 1 and 2)

5.Before putting it into production,just create a test raid and pull out both the disks and plug it back again in the same order to see it the controller picks it on the fly since i have never removed 2 disks.

Moreover raid 1 is single disk fault tolerant so its better you test before putting into real time.

Good luck,

SRH

[MyName isNobody]

I'll give it a try!
Thank you Sandeep H. Raman

Your information is tight, exactly what i needed and wanted!

Sincerly ;)