Moving a RAID 1 between RAID Cards

I have an HP DL380 G6 with the 410i internal controller. I have an array configured with 2 drives as a RAID 1. This logical drive is my boot drive.

I've recently installed a P800 raid card and want to use that to do the internal raid control (so I can get a RAID 6 out of the other 6 drives).

Can I just hook up the backplanes to the new card and setup the RAID 1 in the bios with no data loss or is there something else that is more bullet proof.

The only data that's on the main drives is the OS (Ubuntu 14.04). I suppose I should make sure that there's a good restorable OS backup just in case, but I'm just looking to perform this with the largest amount of peace of mind.

The current setup:

410i

Array A (RAID 1): D1, D2

Array B (RAID 5): D3, D4, D5, D6, D7, D8

P800

Array A (RAID 6): D1... (These are in an MSA60)

Desired setup

410i

NOTHING

P800

Array A (RAID 1): D1, D2

Array B (RAID 6): D3, D4, D5, D6, D7, D8

Array A (RAID 6): D1... (These are in an MSA60)

Eric

Posted 2015-01-02T16:18:19.660

Reputation: 157

I understand the 410i is a real RAID controller, I want to do RAID 6 on the other 6 drives and instead of buying the license pack, I picked up a P800 for a lot cheaper. This means I'd have to sacrafice one backplane, and that just doesn't work with the setup. – Eric – 2015-01-02T16:28:19.533

Answers

Moving a RAID1 between a 410 and a 800 is seamless: If you move just replug the backplane, the drive will be found and recognized immediately. I have done so quite a few times.

Some Gotchas:

on the older (800) controller make sure, you have current firmware before plugging in the backplane
Do not try this with RAID5, unless you have bulletproof backup
On the driver side: Make sure you sort out the cciss vs. hpsa hassle first.

Eugen Rieck

Posted 2015-01-02T16:18:19.660

Reputation: 15 128

Cool. So, I do have a RAID 5, so should I just go delete this array before I replug? I've already Backed up that data to an MSA60 and I'll be rsyncing back once I have that set to RAID 6. See the post (i've updated it). Do you have an idea of what a "current" firmware is? I believe mine currently has 7.50 (at least that's what hpcucli shows) – Eric – 2015-01-02T16:37:19.560

I don't know the latest firmware version (not in the office these days), but think I remember the gotcha was some 3.45 or so firmware, though I might be wrong. The RAID5 might just work, but we have had mixed results (going into degraded by losing a disk - losing 2 would be not nice). Trying won't hurt - if it does work, it will be stable. – Eugen Rieck – 2015-01-02T16:50:13.470

Now seing that you want to create the RAID6 from the now RAID5 disks, I recommend killing the array while still on the old controller. – Eugen Rieck – 2015-01-02T16:51:37.430

Awesome, thanks for the hints, waiting on some rsync operations to finish, then I'll give it a try! – Eric – 2015-01-02T17:27:30.487

Worked, but then discovered the P800 doesn't support the lights on the internal drives. Anyway, thanks a ton! – Eric – 2015-01-04T06:21:46.967

Should work for you since the raid information is stored on the drives themselves.

The HP Smart Array Controllers supports Drive Roaming. The RAID information is stored in the drives and not in the controller, so moving the disks to another server will not result in data lost.

Going off what I found on this thread:

http://h30499.www3.hp.com/t5/ProLiant-Servers-ML-DL-SL/Replace-P400-raid-card-with-P800/td-p/4502289#.VKbRTIrF_xF

Ryan M

Posted 2015-01-02T16:18:19.660

Reputation: 11