corpadmin
asked on
Upgrading drives on Dell MD1000 Storage Array
I am assisting a colleague with an upgrade to his Dell MD1000. The Array has six (6) 300GB SAS drives in a RAID10, eight (8) 136GB SAS drives in a RAID 10 and one (1) empty slot for a total of fifteen (15) slots. The array is over 95% capacity we are investigating upgrade paths.
Our current plan involves these steps:
1. Copy the current array data to a temporary network storage area
2. Label the drives in the array with their current slot numbers (0-14)
3. Remove all the drives from the array
4. Insert all new 600GB SAS drives
5. Create two new RAID 10 partitions
6. Copy the data from the temporary network storage area on to the new drives
My question is this:
If we were required to reset the array back to its original configuration, could we remove the new drives then input the old drives in their original slots?
It is my understanding that the RAID configuration is held on the drives themselves and independent of the on-board RAID controller. If this is true, I would imagine it would be possible to reinsert the original drives and its RAID configurations and data would still be intact. Effectively, it would work as it did before the drives were removed. Can anyone confirm this?
Our current plan involves these steps:
1. Copy the current array data to a temporary network storage area
2. Label the drives in the array with their current slot numbers (0-14)
3. Remove all the drives from the array
4. Insert all new 600GB SAS drives
5. Create two new RAID 10 partitions
6. Copy the data from the temporary network storage area on to the new drives
My question is this:
If we were required to reset the array back to its original configuration, could we remove the new drives then input the old drives in their original slots?
It is my understanding that the RAID configuration is held on the drives themselves and independent of the on-board RAID controller. If this is true, I would imagine it would be possible to reinsert the original drives and its RAID configurations and data would still be intact. Effectively, it would work as it did before the drives were removed. Can anyone confirm this?
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ASKER
1. Physically labeled all drives to display their corresponding drive slot #s (i.e. labeled drive in slot 0 with a sticker saying '0', drive slot 1 with a '1' sticker, etc)
2. Powered off the PE 2850
3. Physically removed all drives
4. Powered on the PE 2850, started the RAID controller configuration utility and deleted the original RAID configuration
5. Powered on the PE 2850 and, as expected, received an error message saying 'no drives found'
6. Powered off the PE 2850
7. Placed the drives back in their original slots; each slot # corresponding to the matching label I had made for each drive.
8. Powered on the PE 2850 and the server booted to the OS.