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I am (slowly) upgrading some Dell servers. One of these has a H330 PERC controller which is quite slow (no cache, etc.).

So I'm considering upgrading it to a H730P.

It is a secondary server with two 4TB SAS disks in RAID1 configuration.

My question is: is the RAID1 volume scheme compatible with H730? That is, can I just unplug the disks from the one controller and plug them into the other, and have it work?

In other words, are the configurations of H330 and H730 similar enough that "Import Foreign Config" will work on the H730?

I can of course reformat the disk and restore from backup, but the backups are on a NAS and the full restore would probably take about three hours (this is the time required for the full backup on Sundays); and it would need to be done at some awkward time. I would very much like, if possible, to schedule a much shorter break during my normal office hours.

Is it possible? Has someone already done this and are there any issues I should be aware of?

LSerni
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2 Answers2

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They are both PERC9 serie controllers, so you should be able to simply swap the controllers. After that, your array will be market as "foreign" and you need to import it in the new controller.

Pay big attention to these steps, because a wrong action will cause the array to be deleted. A working backup is a must in this case. Do not attempt a controller migration without it.

shodanshok
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  • I *do* have a backup, which passes the tests. "Pay attention" is just remembering to *not* initialize the array, right? The problem is that if there's a risk of the migration falling through, I will have to restore the backup, and so I'll need to schedule the migration in some uncomfortable moment *anyway* - I would not feel comfortable in planning for 08:30, and risking not having the machine up from 09:00 to 11:30. I'll try and come up with a schedule so that it if *does* go well, I'll at least enjoy some free time :-). – LSerni Jun 21 '18 at 16:53
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    @LSerni yes, the "pay attention" was about **not** clearing the array configuration. It would be a good idea to do the swap in a calm day... – shodanshok Jun 21 '18 at 23:11
  • I expect to. Of course, there *are* no calm days :-D – LSerni Jun 22 '18 at 07:20
  • **UPDATE** - in the end, the firm closed down mid-July for a brief summer spell. So I went the "full restore from backup" way. Everything went perfectly (it took the whole afternoon though; I had somehow underestimated the restore time), but now I do not have first-hand evidence that the foreign import would have worked. – LSerni Jun 01 '21 at 08:25
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I've taken the "foreign import" route probably 6 or 7 times and it hasn't failed. Clearly have a backup handy, but my approach to those things is have the backup then attempt the path of least resistance first.

Pcampy1
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