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Re: RAID 5 ON ML350 G4 Best practices

 
Joe Galba
Occasional Contributor

RAID 5 ON ML350 G4 Best practices

Can anyone help me. If I have one existing stand alone 72g SCSI drive and will be adding two more and a 641 single channel Smart array controller. What are the best practices for installation, configuration, and preserving the data on the existing drive?

Thanks in advance.

JG
8 REPLIES 8
Igor Karasik
Honored Contributor

Re: RAID 5 ON ML350 G4 Best practices

Joe,
1) Make sure you have good backup
2) Upgrade your SmartArray 641 controller firmware to last version:
http://h18000.www1.hp.com/support/files/server/us/download/23683.html
3) Put two new drives to the server and
extend your logical array to contain the additional drives
4) Perform RAID migration (from RAID-0 to RAID-5)
see page 25 of this document
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c00294139/c00294139.pdf

Note: generally speaking RAID-5 performance is worse than RAID-0 performance.
Joe Galba
Occasional Contributor

Re: RAID 5 ON ML350 G4 Best practices

Igor,

Thanks for the reply. Just to clarify the existing drive is on a 320 controller that came with the ML350 G4, not on the new 641 controller. I need to move the exiting drive to the new 641 controller and the two new drives. Does your response still apply?

Thanks again

Joe
Igor Karasik
Honored Contributor

Re: RAID 5 ON ML350 G4 Best practices

NO !!!!!
If you existing drive is not on SmartArray 641 controller - forget my previous answer!
Igor Karasik
Honored Contributor

Re: RAID 5 ON ML350 G4 Best practices

Joe,
see this thread
http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=999004
it talks about your situation

Re: RAID 5 ON ML350 G4 Best practices

Hi,

the most secure way to go to a RAID5 is to use the previous message to create a RAID1 system and use Ghost, doing this only with your two new disks. Then once the server is running in RAID1, plug your actual disk and migrate the RAID1 to RAID5. Some more informations :

For that RAID 1 arrray, if you have 2 Windows partitions for example, create an array of two disks and two RAID1 logical units of the correct sizes (sizes of your partions), that will be easier to expend your data partition (in case your are using basic disks). Restore each original partition to their new logical unit wirh ghost.

Then once the server is up and running, you should plug your actual disk, add it to the array and migrate your two logical units to RAID5, and then expend the data logical unit to the available space.

To be able to add that new space to the partition in windows, your should then use Diskpart from microsot to expend it to the full logical unit size.

Hope that helps,

Louis-Marie
Hense, Klaus
Valued Contributor

Re: RAID 5 ON ML350 G4 Best practices

Hallo ,
try: add the sa641 with one or more drives, create array and logical drives,
In windows server "disk manager" create a Software Mirror with your disk and your new SmartArray Disk (maybe you must convert your disk from "basic" to "dynamic").
After the mirror is complet remove your first disk and change the boot controller in bios to SmartArray. After booting windows revove in In windows server "disk manager" the missing drive...

klhe
Joe Galba
Occasional Contributor

Re: RAID 5 ON ML350 G4 Best practices

Hi all,

Well I made the changes and now when I open ACU I have two logical drives, RAID 5 on my ML350 G4, a total of three physical drives.

Now I have a question. I want to have RAID 5 with one logical drive and multiple partitions. Do I do this in the Windows server 2003 management tool, or do I have to conmbine the two logical drives first using ACU and then partition in Windoes 2003?

Thanks again for all your help.

JG
Hense, Klaus
Valued Contributor

Re: RAID 5 ON ML350 G4 Best practices

Hallo,
why do you have in ACU two Logical Drives?

Create in Windows the Partitions you want.
klhe