ML350 G3 SCSI disk replacements

[TL Verdone]

I'm certainly not experienced with this issue, so I'll defer to those of you who are on this one....

I am in a position to replace an entire Array of disks on a 3-year old ML350 G3/Dual Xeon 2.8/3-36.4GB/hot swappable/Raid 5/on SmartArray 532/Novell 6.0SP5. 2 disks have previously failed (one has twice), and have rebuilt themselves. Of course, the warranty expired 8 weeks ago. I've convinced my boss that the whole array should be replaced with new disks as a proactive measure.

As this is our only file/app/print server, I thought replacing one disk at a time, and letting each recover and rebuild before doing the others is the safest way to go. I have done redundant backups in anticipation of potential problems.

Matching the disks is an issue. Each has a different HP part #. Can I use like-and-kind, as long as they are a match? (36.4, hot-swap, 10k, U320) Do I need to be mindful of disk and controller firmware level? Can I go to larger disks to eventually reconfigure and increase our capacity? Do I necessarily have to use HP disks, or will others work as well?

I'm a believer in the "if it's working good, don't screw with it" concept, so I have not updated any firmware on the server, just the device drivers and service packs recommended by HP and Novell.

Any guidance from the forum would be appreciated.

Tom

[raadek]

1. Update all firmware levels beforehand
2. Use only HP parts listed as compatible with your server: http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/11430_div/11430_div.HTML#Options
3. Consider off-line replacement, i.e. replace all HDDs in one go & restore from backup - rebuilding one by one could take ages & will impact the performance badly during rebuild process

Rgds.

[TL Verdone]

Offline firmware upgrade worked as advertised. As luck would have it, I have plenty of downtime at night to let the ASR do it's job. No restore from backup was necessary. Thanks for the help.

[TL Verdone]

Done and over...