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I have a test server (PE 1950 III). I would like to run both a Windows Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V environment with VMs as well as a ESXi 5.x environment with VMs. This is strictly for test. Its my understanding that PERC 5/i writes metadata to the disks in terms of the RAID configuration you configure.

My disk sets are:

  1. 2x 160GB 5400 RPM SATA drives (ESXi 5.x) - RAID 1
  2. 2x 500GB 5400 RPM SATA drives (Server 2012 R2) - RAID 1

I would like to be able to swap between disk sets using the same server. Thus the disk sets will always see the same CPU/memory/controller and firmware revs.

My only concern is whether the RAID configuration will be lost on a given set of disks when I swap in the other set. Will I have to reconfigure the PERC 5/i configuration everytime I swap between #1 and #2 disk sets above ?

Obviously, I will shutting current environment cleanly and powering off before swapping to the other disk set. I will also ensure disks in slot 0 and 1 are always re-inserted back into their corresponding slots in the chassis.

This is for testing and staging so the data is not critical but I don't really don't want to destroy the already staged OS/VM configs on these disks but I only have one test server to work with.

So will I have to reconfigure PERC 5/i everytime I swap the disk sets? or is the system intelligent enough to pull the necessary data from the disks and boot up transparently. ?

Thanks in advance, /rw

radiowhiz
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2 Answers2

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Yarik is correct - the metadata specific to each RAID set is stored on the drives, and will be recognized by the controller on boot.

Each time you perform a drive swap and boot, the PERC controller will see drives with a configuration ID that doesn't match what it has stored onboard, and the disks will be marked as "foreign". Be sure that you always import foreign config in this case - clearing will wipe the metadata off of the disks, and you would have to recreate the RAID (without initializing) in order to regain access to the data.

JimNim
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You don˙t have to reconfigure anything. RAID superblock is stored on drives. Therefore, everytime you switch drives, PERC will detect the correct configuration.

The only thing might happen is that PERC will inform you that something has changed.

Yarik Dot
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