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Upgrading hard drives in Dell PowerEdge 1600SC
I have a Dell PowerEdge 1600SC with 5 36GB U320 SCSI hot-swap drives. We've just upgraded to a different server, and I'd like to expand the hard drive space in this server and re-deploy it as a large shared RAID hard drive - without reinstallling the OS.
Unfortunately, I don't have access to any docs on how this server was set up. I can guess at this: the two top drives contain the OS and are mirrored (RAID 1), the three bottom drives are RAID 5. Does that sound like a reasonable guess?
My plan would be this:
1. remove the bottom 3 drives (we have already copied all that data onto the new server). See if it still boots Win2000AS.
2. replace the bottom 3 drives with bigger U320 SCSI drives.
3. Configure and format the new drives "somehow" (probably pressing a key while booting the PERC?)
Should I go ahead with that plan? Do you have any tips? Any recommendations for bigger U320 drives?
Unfortunately, I don't have access to any docs on how this server was set up. I can guess at this: the two top drives contain the OS and are mirrored (RAID 1), the three bottom drives are RAID 5. Does that sound like a reasonable guess?
My plan would be this:
1. remove the bottom 3 drives (we have already copied all that data onto the new server). See if it still boots Win2000AS.
2. replace the bottom 3 drives with bigger U320 SCSI drives.
3. Configure and format the new drives "somehow" (probably pressing a key while booting the PERC?)
Should I go ahead with that plan? Do you have any tips? Any recommendations for bigger U320 drives?
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I have had a good experience with 3ware controllers. Good performance too.
ASKER
I checked the price on 300GB U320 drives, said "you've gotta be kidding", and decided to add a SATA RAID controller and huge cheap drives instead. Any recommends on a good SATA RAID card?