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167132
February 8th, 2013 06:00
Upgrade a R710 with SAS 6/ir to a PERC
I have an upcoming situation and any suggestions/advice would be appreciated...
I have an R710 with 6 x 3.5in drives chassis and populated 6 SAS drives (2 x 136GB and 4 x 300GB)
The server was badly specified prior to purchasing and was therefore purchased with a SAS 6/ir controller
The server is an Exchange box.
OS is on C: which is a RAID-1 using the 2 x 136GB SAS drives
Data in on D: which is a RAID-1 using 2 of the 300GB drives
The other 2 drives are sat doing nothing as the SAS 6/ir can only support 2 virtual disks and only RAID-0 or RAID-1
The problem is the data volume is getting close to capacity and I really need to utilise the spare drives.
Having considered several options, it appears to me that the only viable solution is to get a PERC H700 and import the foreign VDs but I have read that importing a SAS 6/ir VD containing a Windows OS into a PERC H700 is not possible/supported.
I believe importing the data volume would be ok and then I could use RAID level migration and online capacity expansion to add the spare drives and convert from RAID-1 to RAID-5, all with minimal downtime.
So if importing an OS disk is a non-starter, is a server rebuild the only option or I am missing something?
For example, can I run a SAS 6/ir alongside a H700 leaving the OS on the SAS 6/ir and letting the H700 handle the data? If so, how does that work in terms of installing the additional card in the risers and cabling to the enclosures?!?
As I said, any help would be much appreciated.
thanks in advance,
Andy
theflash1932
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16.3K Posts
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April 9th, 2013 17:00
"BSOD with STOP 7B Inaccesible Boot Device"
This is because they use different drivers and the drivers loaded in Windows for the 6/iR are not sufficient to talk to the H700.
What you might try is boot to Windows on the 6/iR, with the H700 inserted (but not connected to anything), let Windows detect the device, load drivers for it, then try moving the drives over to the PERC.
theflash1932
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16.3K Posts
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February 8th, 2013 08:00
You probably aren't going to get both a SAS 6 and an H700 running on the same R710 server ... I say "probably" because I don't know for sure, however, the R710 takes an "integrated" version of the controller, which means there is a slot designed specifically for the RAID card. Using an "integrated" card may not work as expected in a non-integrated slot, and using an "adapter" version may not run as expected in a system that wants an "integrated" card either. However, it may work.
Cabling should not be so difficult, as you could connect the PERC to one backplane connector for disks 0-3 and the SAS to the second connector for disks 4,5. I don't know of a way around the inability to import a Windows OS VD (unless it is simply a driver issue, in which case you might be able to install the H700 - not connected to anything - to load the driver, then connect/import).
theflash1932
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16.3K Posts
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February 8th, 2013 09:00
What he is referring to is the PERC 6 documentation regarding importing VD's from a SAS 6/iR:
only virtual disks with boot volumes of the following Linux operating systems successfully boot after migration:
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 Update 5
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5
• SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 (64-bit)
NOTE: The migration of virtual disks with Microsoft Windows operating systems is not supported.
DELL-Geoff P
990 Posts
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February 8th, 2013 09:00
We will start first with the controllers. You can only use one controller for internal RAID on this server and 2 for external array support.
You can import the arrays using a PERC controller, either using the 6/i or H700. Import the OS RAID 1 first. Once its imported, you can then import your second RAID 1. Once its successfully imported, you can then use OpenManage to reconfigure the second RAID 1 as RAID 5, adding 1 drive at a time. Once finished, you will have unconfigured space. If you are using Server 2008, you can expand your array into the space. If you are using 2003, you will need to use a partitioning tool to expand into the space.
Here is a link to the manual:
A-J-H
6 Posts
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February 11th, 2013 01:00
Thank you for your replies.
As theflash1932 says, the PERC 6 manual states the issue of importing Windows boot volumes from SAS 6/ir VDs...
...so that seems to rule out using PERC 6/i
That leaves the H700 and having searched around, I haven't found an official doc that states that the H700 can import SAS 6/ir. The tech guide talks about importing PERC 6/I and H200...
... but no mention of SAS 6/ir.
I'm sure it probably can but please can anyone confirm that a H700 can successfully import a SAS 6/ir VD boot volume?
Many thanks again
A-J-H
6 Posts
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April 9th, 2013 14:00
Having spent more time investigating and chatting with Dell support, I was confident that a H700 will do the job so today I attempted the upgrade with the following steps...
Booted to Win PE and imagex'd off copies of OS and Data volumes
Removed SAS 6ir and replaced with the H700
Powered up server
CTRL-R into PERC configuration.
At this point, I was expecting a prompt along the lines that a foreign configuration had been detected and to have the option to import it.
However, it had automatically recognised both Virtual Disks and was reporting them as online. So that was good.
Rebooted the server and awaited Server 2008 to boot but got a BSOD with STOP 7B Inaccesible Boot Device
Any further thoughts would be appreciated!
A-J-H
6 Posts
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April 10th, 2013 10:00
Thanks.
The problem was that, because the H700 appeared to "magically" import the SAS6/ir VDs without any user interaction, the arrays could not longer be seen by the SAS6/ir so I was unable to run the controllers side-by-side to get the OS to be aware of the new card
Got around this by...
So, next problem...
The original reason for this upgrade to allow me to use RAID level migration on the volume holding our Exchange data. I was hoping to migrate from RAID-1 to RAID-5 by bringing in 2 unused disks which are identical to the 2 existing disks currently in the RAID-1
The spare disks are on Connector 1
However, in OMSA, when I select Virtual Disk 2 and select Reconfigure and Execute, I cannot click the Connector 1 radio-button as it is greyed-out as shown below...
... so I am unable to bring in the new drives.
Interestingly, as a test, I started the reconfigure wizard on Virtual Disk 1 (the one that I had to recreate on the PERC as opposed being carried over from the SAS6/ir) and I get the option to select the drives on Connector 1 ?!?!
Any further thoughts please!!
Many thanks in advance.
A-J-H
6 Posts
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April 10th, 2013 13:00
Update... have just tried CLI...
omconfig storage vdisk action=reconfigure controller=0 vdisk=2 raid=r5 pdisk=0:0:2,0:0:3,1:0:4,1:0:5
.. without luck. Returns 'Cannot reconfigure to the given RAID level'
Also tried adding one drive at a time with same result.
A-J-H
6 Posts
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April 11th, 2013 08:00
Update... had to do something quickly so resolved as follows...
Never did work out what was wrong with the original virtual disk that "imported" from the SAS 6ir and why this couldn't be Raid Level Migrated.
About to repeat the whole process for the second DAG member will see how it goes this time.
pete0071
4 Posts
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September 2nd, 2013 20:00
I had this upgrade scenario exactly and can verify that this method works.
I added the H700 into a spare slot in the R710, booted Win2008 R2 from the RAID1 volume on the 6/iR, installed the drivers, restarted the server, shutdown the server, replaced the 6/iR with the H700, then booted fine on the H700.