Smart Array 3 disk RAID 5 to 2 disk RAID 1 migration

[José M Pérez Bethencour_1]

Hello people, please take into account I'm not an native english speaker.

I'm wondering if this is at all possible:

We have an Proliant ML530 G2. It has an Smart Array 431, firmware version 1.24. We have an RAID 5 volume from a 3x18GB disk set. This logical drive is therefore 36GB in size, and is being used as a Windows 2000 system disk (boot).

What I'm trying is to change this configuration to an RAID 1 volume with two disks. Of course, two bigger disks so the 36GB fit in (actually I have some 36 and 72GB disks around). The idea is to do this without making an backup, reconfiguring the array and restoring after that.

Online RAID level migration with an Smart Array, from what I've seen so far, only can extend the RAID 5 volume to an 4 disk set RAID 1, but that's not what I want. I want the volume to shrink into 2 disks.

¿Do any of you fellows know if this is at all possible? ¿Maybe some alternate way to do it? I just don't fully trust a system disk restore, because I've never done it befor

[e4services · Accepted solution]

Well there is no tool to shink, that is the controller handle converting the data to a single drive mirrored from a striped 3 drive RAID5. Restoring or copying the data is the only way. Only on of the new disk would be needed at first in a RAID0. Image the partitions to the single drive. remove the 3 drive set. If you boot, you can add the second new drive and migrate to RAID1