SAS HDD Replacment
Dear Experts,
i have HPDL380G7 serevr, with HP P410i controller running win 2008std as file server... currently i am having 300GB SAS HDD, can i replace 300GB one by one to 900GB SAS 10K?
thanks for the help
i have HPDL380G7 serevr, with HP P410i controller running win 2008std as file server... currently i am having 300GB SAS HDD, can i replace 300GB one by one to 900GB SAS 10K?
thanks for the help
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The right way to do it is create a full backup, replace all of the disks, build a new RAID set, then restore.
The RAID setup doesn't matter. If you swap out one disk of a time, then you degrade whatever config you have during the rebuild and you expose yourself to data loss. Remember you don't just have data loss when a disk fails. Unless you are using RAID6, then all it takes is one unreadable block, and then you lose data.
P.S., When it is all over, the capacity will be exactly as it was when you started. You will still have to resize.
It will also take much longer to rebuild than to do a backup / restore. Not only that, but you will still have the original disks with your data, so in event you have a read error on the restore, then your original disks can be forced back in, so you have zero risk of data loss.
Unless you have a means to prevent ECC errors, drive failures, and unreadable blocks in the future, then a swap upgrade is just stupid. Sorry, but you won't get permission from any storage pro that this scheme is either safe or a wise thing to do. If the data is valuable and something bad does happen on a swap upgrade, ask yourself if you are risking your job or a lawsuit. Do the right thing and backup first.
P.S., When it is all over, the capacity will be exactly as it was when you started. You will still have to resize.
It will also take much longer to rebuild than to do a backup / restore. Not only that, but you will still have the original disks with your data, so in event you have a read error on the restore, then your original disks can be forced back in, so you have zero risk of data loss.
Unless you have a means to prevent ECC errors, drive failures, and unreadable blocks in the future, then a swap upgrade is just stupid. Sorry, but you won't get permission from any storage pro that this scheme is either safe or a wise thing to do. If the data is valuable and something bad does happen on a swap upgrade, ask yourself if you are risking your job or a lawsuit. Do the right thing and backup first.
It is a supported method, see http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c00572169/c00572169.pdf in the section entitled "Upgrading hard drive capacity".
Bear in mind as dlethe says you may encounter a bad block and then have to restore from backup but that risk is always there when a hard disk fails (or is deliberately pulled).
Do you not have any spare drive bays? Adding disks to the array is superior as you always have parity even during the re-levelling process. You can get an additional 8 disk bay for that server, quite easy to fit although you have to remove the DVD. You can either have 8+8 disks with two controllers or all 16 on one controller with addition of SAS expander card. SAS expander card is a bit fiddly to fit because of all the cables.
Bear in mind also that going from sub 2TiB to greater than 2 TiB may be a problem as your current filesystem may have a 2TiB boundary.
Bear in mind as dlethe says you may encounter a bad block and then have to restore from backup but that risk is always there when a hard disk fails (or is deliberately pulled).
Do you not have any spare drive bays? Adding disks to the array is superior as you always have parity even during the re-levelling process. You can get an additional 8 disk bay for that server, quite easy to fit although you have to remove the DVD. You can either have 8+8 disks with two controllers or all 16 on one controller with addition of SAS expander card. SAS expander card is a bit fiddly to fit because of all the cables.
Bear in mind also that going from sub 2TiB to greater than 2 TiB may be a problem as your current filesystem may have a 2TiB boundary.
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