RAID 5 to RAID 1 + 5

[hp_curious]

I have the following hardware configuration :

* Servers with 5 disks configured in a RAID5 (OS and DATA stripped and duplicated across all disks)

AND WANT TO MOVE TO

* 2 disks mirrored in RAID1 (hosting the OS files), and,
* All others disks in RAID5 (DATA stripped and duplicated across all disks).

Can someone explain if this is possible and if I am correct in the following approach?

The RAID migration steps will probably be the following:

1. Shutdown server
2. Plug 2 new disks
3. Restart server
4. Configure the 2 new disks in RAID1 with HP Array Configuration Utility
5. Boot on Linux CD, copy OS partitions to new RAID1 disks
6. Change fstab so that next restart boots on OS hosted on RAID1 disks
7. Reboot server

Thanks

[wobbe]

If I understand you correctly you want to move the the o.s. to a new raid 1 volume and leave the other (5) disks in the 5 volume.
I don't think your procedure will work. Atleast you wil need to boot from an alternative media before you can duplicate the o.s. and then you also need to reconfigure your bootloader (grub) and fstab.
Why not go for one big rad 5 volume, unless you have a lot of disk activity on your o.s. this will probably perform better and it will certainly give you some extra space.
And this can probably be done trough the raid controller.