Actually, I'm going to go out on a limb, and say that they do not have to be re-inserted in the server in the same order.
I beleive the RAID information is stored on the disks themselves. The idea being that if you experience a critical server failure, or something similar to what you just experienced, you can swap the disks out of one server, and put them in another, and the the RAID controller should be smart enough to detect changes in the positions of the drives
see here:
http://bizsupport2.austin.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c01608507/c01608507.pdfFrom Page 51:
"You can move drives to other ID positions on the same array controller. You can also move a complete
array from one controller to another, even if the controllers are on different servers.
Before you move drives:
├в ┬в The server must be powered down.
├в ┬в If moving the drives to a different server, the new server must have enough empty bays to
accommodate all the drives simultaneously.
├в ┬в The array must not have failed or missing drives.
├в ┬в No spare drive in the array is acting as a replacement for a failed drive.
├в ┬в The controller is not running capacity expansion, capacity extension, or RAID or stripe size
migration.
├в ┬в The controller is using the latest firmware version (recommended).
Before you move an array to another controller:
├в ┬в If the other controller is already connected to one or more arrays of configured logical drives, the total number of logical drives on the controller after the drives have been moved must not exceed the number of logical drives that the controller supports. This number depends on the controller model
and on the controller firmware version.
├в ┬в The total number of hard drives on the other controller after the drives have been moved must not
exceed the maximum number of supported hard drives for that controller model and firmware
version.
├в ┬в All drives in the array must be moved at the same time.
When all the conditions have been met:
1. Back up all data before removing any drives or changing configuration. This step is required if you
are moving data-containing drives from a controller that does not have a battery-backed cache
module.
2. Power down the system.
3. Move the drives.
4. Power up the system.
o If a 1724 or 1727 POST message appears, drive positions were changed successfully and the
configuration was updated.
- If a 1785 POST message appears:
i. Power down the system immediately to prevent data loss.
ii. Return the drives to their original locations.
iii. Restore the data from backup, if necessary.
5. Verify the new drive configuration by running ORCA or ACU ("Configuring an array" on page 25)."
I just tried jumbling aroung the drive positions on a DL385 G3 we have in our test lab. On bootup, we get an error "1724: Physical Drive Position Change(s) detected - Logical drive configuration has automatically been updated". After that, the machine booted up fine.
Not sure if this would work if the disks were put into a new server with a different RAID controller, but the doco seems to say that it would. (provided you followed the instructions in the doco)
