Expanding to HP storageworks

[Adrian Sen]

Hi, we are running a HP DL370 server with 6 x 300 gb disks on RAID 5. Due to a Windows update causing our server to fail recently, we couldn't access the data. I now want to separate the data from the OS (Windows server 2008 r2) so that if anything like that happens again, we can route everyone through a separate server. I have seen these HP storageworks enclosures (msa70) and have a couple of questions:

1.Can I just take out our 2.5 inch 10k SAS drives, install them in the new Storageworks NAS and hey presto we would be up and running?

2.If I wanted to then add another drive (I think there are 25 bays), can I just insert a blank but identical drive and the RAID 5 would dynamically expand to incorporate the new drive.

Many thanks

Adrian

[Michael A. McKenney]

I would take a difference course of action. I would install RAID 1 or 10 for your OS and Paging file and leave your data on RAID 5 or even convert that to RAID 10. Microsoft recommends RAID 1 or 10 for OS and paging. RAID 5 and OS is not supported because if the server crashes on RAID 5, it corrupts the OS.

[Adrian Sen]

Hi Michael,

Thanks for taking the time to reply. I probably didn't explain myself well enough before. We are actually running the os on RAID 1 and the data on RAID 5.

I am working as a consultant with a firm trying to oversee disaster recovery strategies but sadly I am not a network expert. I will try to explain more clearly what I am trying to do.

We are running 2 hp server boxes. The first has 8 300gb drives. The first 2 are running the OS mirrored and the other 6 are running RAID5. The second server is purely running 2 disks mirrored (not as critical as the first).

A few weeks ago, the OS of the first server was corrupted by an overnight Windows update which MS staff took a day to sort out. Because the server was all bundled together (os and disks), there was no longer any access to the disks and no staff could work.

What I am trying to achieve is to separate the OS on the servers from a large datastore that can be accessed by both the servers. I am thinking of virtualising the servers so in the event of the OS going down again, we can fire up virtual machines on the other server and still have access to the data. The reason for wanting something like the MSA70 was the hope that we could utilise our existing 2.5 inch drives (rather than throwing them out) and buy further ones as we need them. The icing on the cake would have been just taking them out of their current slots and putting them into some new system and that system reading the RAID5 array (otherwise how do we build the new array without buying a duplicate system of disks?). The further icing on the cake (the cherry on top?) would have been to expand the array by just putting in another 300gb disk and the system automatically updating that array.

Iâ m not sure if Iâ ve explained this well or not!!

Is there is any upgrade system out there that we can buy to do this.

Again, many thanks for your time.

Adrian

[Trygve Henriksen]

If you're serious about disaster protection, consider using a fibre-based SAN.

That way you can also easily spread the resources between floors or even buildings.
(I have a Virtual Tape library in a building a few hundred meters away)
It's nice to know that if the server room in the basement(just an example) floods, then the backup-server across the road can access the networked disks, which can be at a completely different location. And the tape robot can be located where you find it most convenient...
(Why have both the disks and the backup of them in the same room?)