1

I have a Dell Poweredge (R310) connected to two Powervaults (MD1200). The Poweredge has failed leaving me unable to access the data on the Powervaults. I have another Poweredge (R610) that is in operation, connected to two Powervaults (MD1200). Both of the Poweredge servers run CentOS.

Is it possible for me to connect the first two Powervault servers to the functioning R610 server for the purposes of retrieving the data from them? In this situation it is fine for me to daisy chain the target Powervaults to the ones already in place, or to disconnect them temporarily while I retrieve the data.

Stringers
  • 29
  • 1
  • 2
  • 8

1 Answers1

1

What controller card were the enclosures connected to? What operating system is running on the hosts?

Assuming PERC H800 and both hosts running Windows... if the original H800 card from the R310 is still functional, you can actually move that H800 to the R610 and connect the enclosures in the same manner as before. Then you could boot the system, and the same volumes and file systems would still be seen within the OS.

If the H800 card is dead, or you simply want to connect the MD1200's to a different H800 that's already in the R610, you can still connect both enclosures (daisy chained) to the new card. You'll just have to "import foreign configuration" on boot on the controller.

Do NOT "clear" the foreign configuration if all your drives show up as foreign - this will essentially overwrite the existing metadata, and you'll potentially lose your data (or at least make it much more difficult to gain access to).

JimNim
  • 2,736
  • 12
  • 23
  • Thanks @JimNim. Both servers are running CentOS (I've added this into the question). Will that change anything? The H800 in the R310 appears to be working fine and I believe that the R610 uses one as well, so that might be an options. As for the second option, specifically what stage of the boot should I be looking to import the foreign config? – Stringers Feb 05 '18 at 22:47
  • CentOS will likely be no different - I should have said “assuming both hosts have operating systems that can both mount the file system on the enclosures”. During system boot (after POST, and when you see component firmware initializarions in white text on black background), the PERC will actually STOP the boot process when the foreign config is detected, and wait for you to provide input for importing. – JimNim Feb 06 '18 at 07:45