Unsolved
3 Posts
0
1456
PERC 6/1 Convert a single online drive to a 2-drive RAID 1
Hello-
I can use some help with my PERC 6/i configuration. I really like my PowerEdge server and, although it's a little older, it works perfectly for my IIS Application Server software. Here's a brief background on my current configuration. I have 3 Virtual Disks setup and working perfectly. Each VD consists 2 Physical Disks, setup as RAID 1 (mirroring). The first VD (boot drive) previously consisted of 2 Dell 146GB SAS Drives. For a few reasons, I needed to upgrade the RAID to 256GB and I wanted to improve the performance with SSD Drives.
There's probably a better way to do it, but I "cloned" one of the SAS drives to my new 256GB SSD drive and created the the VD, without any RAID, but with the single Drive (which is showing online). The server boots perfectly AND I have the additional space I needed and I'm seeing a nice performance improvement from the SSD.
Everything's great, but I'd feel better if I could have the redundancy of a RAID 1, in that VD, especially, because it's the boot drive (I know today's SSD drives are very reliable, but, for the small amount of money, I have extra peace of mind to go along with the redundant power supplies.
I've inserted the blank (identically matching) drive into the space "01" (the working, bootable online drive is in space "00"), but I can't find any way to convert the VD to RAID 1. I "think" I can simply Delete the VD and then recreate a VD, with RAID 1, but I'm worried that the existing data on my working, bootable drive will be deleted, when the VD is initialized. I hope that makes sense.
If PERC 6/1 controller is smart enough to realize that one drive has data and the other is blank, if might simply create the RAID 1 and rebuild the new drive. That would be ideal, but I NEED YOUR HELP to know if that's what I should do or if there's another way to get where I'm trying to go.
I still have the original SAS drives that were configured for RAID 1 (and bootable), if that would help. Finally, keep in mind that my server is currently working perfectly, with the current configuration (3 VD's; the first with no RAID and the other 2 with RAID 1), so this isn't urgent. I would like to get RAID 1 on the first VD, but not at the risk of losing any data on the other 2 VD's or incurring significant down time.
I'd appreciate any help/suggestions you can offer.
Thank you,
Phil
I
DELL-Chris H
Moderator
Moderator
•
8.8K Posts
0
May 26th, 2020 05:00
Buffalo Phil,
What you are wanting to do is called a Raid Level Migration. You need to access OpenManage and implement a Reconfigure on the Virtual Disk, select Raid 1 as well as the new drive. It will then convert it to Raid 1 and rebuild that new drive to the Virtual Disk.
Hope this helps.
Buffalo Phil
3 Posts
0
May 26th, 2020 14:00
THANK YOU, Chris.. I appreciate the response. I will access "Open Manage" and give it a try (I'm sure it'll work). That's just what I needed.
I'll keep you posted about my success (or lack thereof ).
Phil
Buffalo Phil
3 Posts
0
May 27th, 2020 01:00
Hi Chris! You're a genius! The OpenManage worked perfectly, following your instructions. I created the RAID 1 and it's working great.
I was not familiar with OpenManage... it's a great tool (I had been doing all of my configurations at the Ctrl-R BIOS level... this is much more powerful. In fact, using that tool, I saw that the PERC controller needed a BIOS update (which I did) and I learned that one of my redundant power supplies wasn't registering (so I ordered a replacement).
Anyway, you help and guidance were invaluable. Thanks so much for your help.
Phil