HP Proliant DL 380 G5 server and mirroring SAS drives
I have an HP Proliant DL 380 G5 server running SBS2008
- The OS/Boot/System partition (C-Drive) is running on a pair of 146 GB mirrored SAS drives (Drive slots 1 and 2)
- The Exchange is running on a Mirrored pair of 72GB SAS drives (D-Drive)
- And Data is running on 4 x 72GB SAS drive in RAID5 (E-Drive)
I want to create an ERD (Emergency Repair Disk – different from the floppy disk terminology) - only for the C-Drive partition for the two drives in Slot 1 and 2. (This is what we called it in the corporate world 8 years ago)
- Years ago, I would create an ERD drive by pulling out the 2nd mirrored SCSI drive (SCSI ID:1) where the first drive (SCSI ID: 0) would not be touched. The mirrored pair would hold the Operating system whereas the remaining drives would be RAID5 and hold the Data partition
So, in my current scenario, instead of creating a “bare metal Recovery disk” using software, I would periodically pull out the drive in Slot 2 – where I would choose the 2nd drive of the mirrored pair and swap this out every few months when I would perform maintenance.
- I already have good DATA backups in place (I use BackUpAssist)
My concern is: I have not had a reason to perform a server recovery therefore no proof that this will work
My plan is: in the event the server wont boot due to either a hard drive failure or system corruption by a virus or related issue
- I would power off the server
- pull out both drives (Drives 1 and 2 in slots 1 and 2)
- insert the ERD drive in its original Drive 2 slot (leaving slot 1 empty
- Boot the server and hit the F1 key that the server should prompt to allow booting from one drive
- If it boots and the operating system comes up fine, I would then insert a replacement drive in Slot 1 to complete the mirror image and hope the synchronization is successful
Does anyone see any issues with my plan?
Please note that this always worked well with the older HP Proliant DL 580 G1 servers running NT4.0.
- The OS/Boot/System partition (C-Drive) is running on a pair of 146 GB mirrored SAS drives (Drive slots 1 and 2)
- The Exchange is running on a Mirrored pair of 72GB SAS drives (D-Drive)
- And Data is running on 4 x 72GB SAS drive in RAID5 (E-Drive)
I want to create an ERD (Emergency Repair Disk – different from the floppy disk terminology) - only for the C-Drive partition for the two drives in Slot 1 and 2. (This is what we called it in the corporate world 8 years ago)
- Years ago, I would create an ERD drive by pulling out the 2nd mirrored SCSI drive (SCSI ID:1) where the first drive (SCSI ID: 0) would not be touched. The mirrored pair would hold the Operating system whereas the remaining drives would be RAID5 and hold the Data partition
So, in my current scenario, instead of creating a “bare metal Recovery disk” using software, I would periodically pull out the drive in Slot 2 – where I would choose the 2nd drive of the mirrored pair and swap this out every few months when I would perform maintenance.
- I already have good DATA backups in place (I use BackUpAssist)
My concern is: I have not had a reason to perform a server recovery therefore no proof that this will work
My plan is: in the event the server wont boot due to either a hard drive failure or system corruption by a virus or related issue
- I would power off the server
- pull out both drives (Drives 1 and 2 in slots 1 and 2)
- insert the ERD drive in its original Drive 2 slot (leaving slot 1 empty
- Boot the server and hit the F1 key that the server should prompt to allow booting from one drive
- If it boots and the operating system comes up fine, I would then insert a replacement drive in Slot 1 to complete the mirror image and hope the synchronization is successful
Does anyone see any issues with my plan?
Please note that this always worked well with the older HP Proliant DL 580 G1 servers running NT4.0.
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What is the recommendation for creating an image for this server using the p400 controller?
ASKER
I just got off the phone with HP Server support. I 'm told HP does not support what I'm doing but that many folks do it and it works. It supposedly works fine with the p400 controller
The recovery option in the event the operating system got corrupted and I couldn't repair it, I would shut down the server, pull the two drives out, boot from Smart Start CD and run the ACU, break the mirrored pair, insert the ERD disk I created, boot the server.
Once the server boots from this drive, insert the replacement drive in slot 1 so it can sync.
My best bet is to try this on a non production Proliant G5 server to make sure this actually works
andyalder - the document you provided was a great help.
The recovery option in the event the operating system got corrupted and I couldn't repair it, I would shut down the server, pull the two drives out, boot from Smart Start CD and run the ACU, break the mirrored pair, insert the ERD disk I created, boot the server.
Once the server boots from this drive, insert the replacement drive in slot 1 so it can sync.
My best bet is to try this on a non production Proliant G5 server to make sure this actually works
andyalder - the document you provided was a great help.
Tread lightly :)