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Re: Best Way to "upgrade-migrate" from DL380 G2 to G4?

 
Russell Painter
Occasional Advisor

Best Way to "upgrade-migrate" from DL380 G2 to G4?

Can anyone tell me if it is possible to "migrate" my system drive raid 1 on a DL380-G2 with a 5i controller,to a DL380 G4?
(6i controller?)

I would love to just grab the drives out of the G2 and pop them into the G4 and keep going....
(The old server also has a 5300 for a data drive raid 5)

Has anyone tried this?

Could I add 6x drivers to the G2 first and then do the exchange?

I saw somewhere someone "suggested" putting a 6x controller into the G2 first, and then doing the transfer...but not sure if they actually did it...


Or how about swapping in a new drive on the G2 and then use it on the G4..?

or...????

Is there an "HP" tried and true way to do this? I have to think it has been done many times....

thanks in advance!!!

Russell

6 REPLIES 6
Robert Walker_8
Valued Contributor

Re: Best Way to "upgrade-migrate" from DL380 G2 to G4?

Gday,

HP have a product called P2P or Proliant to Proliant - it is designed to migrate a proliant to another proliant and probably came out of the need to convert physical servers to virtuals (P2V) and some smart person realised that old legacy systems are difficult to reproduce and that a method to migrate a system to new hardware was needed.

Its worth checking out - the last I recall is that you buy it per conversion so in units of 1, probably 5 and 10 as well if required (its not free). From memory you would snap shot image the disks from old to new (aka ghost the system disk) and then run the converter over the new disk image - it replaces the HAL specifics and corrects drivers etc and after a few reboots your away, then you would then copy the data from the old system across.

Depending on disk sizes and that could be a little lengthy (esp if system drive is app drive and say greater than 36gb drive) - but is probably the best way out of it.

Other option is run VMWARE on G4 and P2V and convert to virtual - but this would cost a lot more $$$ than HPs P2P.

Robert.
Kedd Guyton
Respected Contributor

Re: Best Way to "upgrade-migrate" from DL380 G2 to G4?

This is probably not the easiest way to do it, but it is probably one of the cheapest. Use a disk imaging tool (Ghost or DriveImage XML if you like) to image the DL380 G2 to the DL380 G4. Run a Windows Repair process pressing the F6 key to add the SA-6i MSD driver. Update the PSP (ProLiant Support Pack).

I'm not sure about inserting your existing LFF SCSI disks from the DL380 G2 into the DL380 G4. The disks and the array(s) should be recognized, but I don't know. Regardless, you'd still be looking at a Windows Repair to clean up.

There were some quirks about the DL380 G2 that made it slightly different from other ACPI APIC HAL's, but I can't remember the specifics. If you get into a situation where the Windows Repair isn't working correctly, remember that you can press the F5 key to manually choose the HAL.
Jason_212
Occasional Advisor

Re: Best Way to "upgrade-migrate" from DL380 G2 to G4?

I have done this before and it can be a bit iffy. Make sure you have good backups before beginning.

Assuming you don't want to buy anything and don't own a product like Ghost for disk imaging, you can try this:

1. Put a 6400 array controller in the old server and let Windows (assuming you are running Windows 2003 and fully patched) find it and assign a driver. You may need install driver (such as running Support Paq).
2. Pull the drives and put them in DL380G4.
3. Let it boot up. If you get BSOD, then put them back in old server. If get a login screen, login locally. Be ready to install Support Paq and deal with having to reset up NIC and other devies as they are new to the OS.

I have done this about a dozen times with various model servers. If were booting from a 6400 controller on the new server, this would have a greater chance of working. If booting from 6i, it could be iffy. I think somebody recommmended doing a recovery and add the driver via F6.
Robert Walker_8
Valued Contributor

Re: Best Way to "upgrade-migrate" from DL380 G2 to G4?

Hi Russell,

May have given you a bum steer - its actually called Physical to ProLiant-P2P

http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/servers/proliantessentials/valuepack/migrate/index.html

This will take any Physical Server (cant see why it wouldnt do a virtual, but dont quote me here) and convert to run upon a proliant server - we used it to do a similar thing you propose as the applications were too hard to migrate and the time to migrate was severely limited - this stuff did a good job within hours the server had been migrated to a later proliant system without problem.

Robert.
Kedd Guyton
Respected Contributor

Re: Best Way to "upgrade-migrate" from DL380 G2 to G4?

One other item that should be mentioned is that the SA-5i, SA-6i, SA-5300, and SA-6400 all use the same driver. If you update the driver for your existing SA-5i, you're updating the driver for all other controllers mentioned above. Unfortunately, I don't think Windows is smart enough to add the additional hardware ID's for the other controllers with regards to the boot controller.

If you wanted to give this a shot, remember to look for another entry in Device Manager--after selecting Show Hidden Devices--in Other Devices / Non-PNP Devices. There should be another entry in Other Devices for the bootable controller if the server was built using an unattended install.
Russell Painter
Occasional Advisor

Re: Best Way to "upgrade-migrate" from DL380 G2 to G4?

I greatly appreciate the ideas to my question. I guess, after thinking it through, I have decided to just do an old fashioned install on the new server.The old server has windows 2003, and I decided to go ahead and install windows 2008 on the new server and re install anything I need to ....
I think the Raid 5 data drive will slide right over without a hitch...My understanding is that all array/RAID information is held on the drives themselves, although I will probably bring the SA5300 across and then upgrade to a SA6400 after the transfer...

thanks to all who replied!