RAID 5 problem

[Howard Yuan]

I have a DL380G4 server built with 6 drives. I made a RAID 5 using all 6 drives. Things have been running smooth until we had to move the server to another location.My IT guy decided it would be best to take out all the drives from the server before moving it and he did not write which drive went where. The server was off when he removed the drives. How should I go about putting the drives back in w/o losing all the data?

Thanx in advance.

P.S. This thread has been moved from General  to ProLiant Servers (ML,DL,SL). - Hp Forum Moderator

[Ian Vaughan]

Howdy,
I'm afraid that I can't give you a definitive answer but my gut feeling is that it shouldn't matter because...

You can do a DAS (direct attached storage) to SAN migration by putting your disks from your proliant into, say, an MSA1000. I don't remember having to put the disks into the array in a specific order as the disks are marked by the controller as a raid group. Hence you should be able to put 'em back into your proliant in any old order and it *should* work. The raid controller might complain but it should be fine.

However - please take a minute to raise a support ticket and ask HP before you do it.

Kind regards
Ian

[Ivan Ferreira · Accepted solution]

Look for witepaper
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/DocumentIndex.jsp?contentTyp
e=SupportManual〈=en&cc=us&docIndexId=179111&taskId=101&prodTypeId=3
29290&prodSeriesId=367226
Ultra320 SCSI technology in HP Smart Array controllers technology brief
and for User Guide:
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/CoreRedirect.jsp?redirectReas
on=DocIndexPDF&prodSeriesId=367226&targetPage=http%3A%2F%2Fh20000.www
2.hp.com%2Fbc%2Fdocs%2Fsupport%2FSupportManual%2Fc00574141%2Fc0057
4141.pdf

From this documents:
Data compatibility
Each Smart Array controller provides complete data compatibility with previous-generation Smart Array controllers. This compatibility makes it easy to upgrade array controllers by swapping controllers, and makes it easy to migrate data from server to server by moving data drives to new controllers.
--
You can move drives to other ID positions on the same array controller. You can also move a complete array from one controller to another, even if the controllers are on different servers.

[Howard Yuan]

Thanx guys. I also called HP on it to confirm and the tech said that it shouldn't be a problem. I was able to get the server back up and running w/o losing my data. WOOHOO~! Thanx much! :)