Transfering Hard Drives Between Servers

[Avi_18]

Hi,
I have ML370 with 6 scsi drives in Raid 5 and with 2 arrays on windows 2000 server.
I want to upgrade the server to a new one and I wanted to know if I can transfer the hard drives to the new server with the installed operating system withuot reinstalling it.I heard that in some models it can be done.

Thanks in advanced,

Avi.

[Akos Hegedus]

Hi Avi,

yes it is possible, it depends on the SA controller. Which one do you use now and which version will you get?

regards,
Akos

[Avi_18]

See attached file.

If I'm transfering with the controller?

[Akos Hegedus]

If you take the controller with the disks, then you will have no problems with the logical drives. You may have problems with drivers for the network card and the system, but you can install/update them in the new system.

The picture you sent doesn't contain the required information about your hardware, it could be better to send the details from the survey.txt or the server systems management home page (http://server_name:2301) if the HPQ agents are installed.

[Avi_18]

The only problem I'll have(when the operating system is already installed and I'm transfering to new hardware) is with the network card?
The operating system will not have other hardware problems?
On what proliant models are we talking about?

Thanks in advanced.

[Akos Hegedus · Accepted solution]

Hi,

we have several contracts for disaster recovery and have a limited number of server models. We are backing up for example DL580 server with DL530, DL580G2 with DL380G3, PL3000 with PL5500 and PL2500. At test time we restore the server from backup media and after that most of the new components are discovered automatically exept network cards, management cards and sometimes video adapters. We had no problem with different processor architectures. If you upgrade the number of processors from one to many you have to upgrade the HAL, but the server will work without it on one proc. Our only rule is that the server storage controllers must have the same architecture (have the same driver). And if you change the controller the same firmware (or newer). Or you can change the controller to a newer but you must install its driver before the HDD move.

Either case the logical drives will be migrated to the new controller too. But if you forget to install the drivers, the server won't boot.

regards
Akos

[Avi_18]

Good idea to test with a backup media first.

I'll check it out.

Thanks.