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Poweredge 1900 tower replace SAS drives
Hi All,
I have a dell poweredge 1900 tower with three TN937 146GB 15K SAS 3.5" HD's. Are these drives a straight swap with Dell HT954 300GB 15K SAS 3.5 HD's? Is there anything to configure on the drives before installation in terms of jumpers? Are the HT954 Hard drives supported by raid 5? Thanks for any info in advance, or even links to information.
Dev Mgr
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April 12th, 2012 19:00
I don't think I've ever seen any SAS drives that actually have jumpers.
Any drive is supported for raid 5 (it's not a feature of a drive, but of the raid controller). Some drives are raid certified as such, but if it's a SAS drive, that's automatically the case.
If you don't have the need to keep data, you can just shut down the server, pull the 3 x 146, put in 3 x 300, power up and use the PERC bios to create a raid 5 with the 300GB drives.
DELL-Manfred W
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April 12th, 2012 21:00
Hi imnotoriginal
I can confirm part# HT954 is supported by PE 1900. However, it is a HD,300G,SAS,DU,10K,3.5. Not a 15K drive.
You can go ahead to replace the drives with the suggestion from Dev Mgr, provided they are hot-pluggables.
Let us know how it goes.
theflash1932
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April 13th, 2012 10:00
When slowly filling up the array (like with an OS install), you don't usually have to wait - as Dev Mgr said, it initializes in the background, and the array can generally be used in those few hours during the initialization. I have found that some people run into problems when dumping a lot of data on the array without giving the initialization time to complete (or at least give it a head start).
If you are in a hurry, give it a shot, then if you run into any problem, simply wait until it is done. If you have the time, give it a few hours just to be sure.
imnotorginal
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April 13th, 2012 07:00
would you be able to give me a rough estimation on how much time it would take to complete the raid 5 build for the 3 300GB drives? Maybe something in your experience?
Thank you for the information from earlier.
theflash1932
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April 13th, 2012 09:00
You won't actually be "rebuilding" anything; you will configure and initialize the drives in a new RAID 5 array ... right? If so, after configuring and initializing, the initialization will take several hours to complete, but you don't have to wait for it before installing your OS. If you are going to just be dumping a backup image onto it, then I'd give it a couple of hours before starting.
You aren't planning to replace the drives one by one to preserve the existing data/array are you?
Dev Mgr
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April 13th, 2012 09:00
The PERC controller support background initialization, meaning that you can immediately start using it while the controller scrubs in the background.
If you do nothing else, I would think that with 10 or 15k drives you're looking at 2 to 3 hours at most.
imnotorginal
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April 13th, 2012 10:00
I plan on imaging current drives, replacing with larger drives, create new raid and apply image. Can you point me to something with info regarding being able to use raid while initialization it running? I am not too familiar with this concept. Thank you for your input, it is greatly appreciated.
imnotorginal
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April 22nd, 2012 07:00
**Follow up**
The HT954 300GB SAS fit perfectly as they should. Entered raid configuration menu, deleted old configuration, created new raid 5, initialized. Drives worked perfectly.
Very easy and smooth. Thanks for all information and help!
theflash1932
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April 22nd, 2012 09:00
Glad to hear it.