Rebuilding Raid of Poweredge 2900
I am need of some advice. Here is what I am trying to accomplish. I have a Pweredge 2900, Windows Server 2003 with 3 -160gb sata drives and I am trying to replace them with 3 - 300gb sas drives. I can get them to show up in the OMSA and Bios Configuration Utility as ready but I can not get any further. What I believe I have found out is I cannot mix and match SATA and SAS drives in the same array. What I have done is put my 3 SAS drives in the 2nd enclosure and have created a new VD2 out of them. What I think I can do from here is copy the VD1 to VD2 and then unload VD1 having VD2 take over. I have tried to find the best way to get this done and I don't believe I have found the best way, does any one have any advice.
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What I would do is while having the 3 sata drives in ( assuming its a raid 5 parity configuration with 3 disks) use either bootable ghost or acronis trueimage echo enterprise bootable make an image on an external drive. Then remove the 3 sata drives, install the sas drives and configure raid 5 again. Then boot into the cloning software and restore the image you made previously.
While that is definitely one way to go, however, there shouldn't be any reason you couldn't clone directly from one VD to the other, bypassing the external altogether ... unless it is a limitation of the cloning software you are using.
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That sure sounds like the way to go PowerEdge with less time that it would take, although like I was saying above the software I have comes up with several choices not just a clone one vd to another it has it broke out in partitions. Ghost 10.0 which I do have can do what vlikidis was saying but I have had issues with the imaged drives coming up and being recognized, I heard it was the version that I have. Anyway that brought me to use BootIT NG, just don't think that is the way to go either. Trying to find downloadable software that will do this for me now, then I can take the next step and verify this is all going to work.
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Well guys it will be couple hours before I see the results. I will tell you the out come maybe tonight but more than likely tomorrow. Once I get the copy done, then I will pull the sata drives out of the 1st enclosure, put the sas drives into the first enclusure, go into the bios raid utility and reconfigure, then reboot. Is this the correct steps, or will I have to go in and remove the all raids and vd's first then power down and pull the sata drives and put in the sas drives, boot into the utility and reconfigure my raid, then boot. I appreciate your help.
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Great, that will be my plan then, I will touch base and tell you the outcome later. Thanks again.
Good luck!
The easiest way for you would be taking backup image of the system and data partitions on current RAID. Then rebuild the RAID with new drives from scratch thus having bigger capacity.
After that restore from backup images to new RAID performing autoresize during restore.
I have done this operation many times and it always worked as planned.
Get a copy of Paragon Drive Backup 10 Server from here: www.drive-backup.com
BTW, trial version could work also if its Recovery CD based on Linux detects your RAID controller properly. Otherwise full version with WinPE Recovery CD would be necessary to restore from backup image.
After that restore from backup images to new RAID performing autoresize during restore.
I have done this operation many times and it always worked as planned.
Get a copy of Paragon Drive Backup 10 Server from here: www.drive-backup.com
BTW, trial version could work also if its Recovery CD based on Linux detects your RAID controller properly. Otherwise full version with WinPE Recovery CD would be necessary to restore from backup image.
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PowerEdge the EASEUS software worked great and I have everything up and running all I need to do now is the slide of the D: drive; resize the C: drive and then resize the D: which I can do all through BootIt NG. Thank You all for your help once again you guys have helped me through a process that was new to me. I appreciate all your time.
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When I am really in a bind chances are Expert Exchange not only can get me through to the other side but holds our hands also to make everything go smooth. Thanks.
Glad it went well. Take care.
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