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Cloning a PowerEdge R640 server
We have a number of R640 servers each with a pair of 300GB SAS drives in a RAID-1 configuration.
Is it possible to clone a server by pulling one of the disks and inserting it into a second server?
I'm pretty sure we used to be able to do this with some M620 blades we have.
BIOS Version 1.4.5
iDRAC Firmware 3.21.21.21
DELL-Chris H
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April 24th, 2019 06:00
Mkelly-scsc,
While it is possible to do, depending on the raid controller, it isn't recommended. This is due to the system state data from one system will not be the exact same as the next, which can cause instability. The most stable route would be to create the VM, install the OS and restore the data you want to transfer between servers. Now this is a lot more time consuming and intensive, but takes out the possible instability.
Just a suggestion.
mkelly-scsc
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April 24th, 2019 09:00
Hi Chris,
thanks for the quick response and the confirmation that it can be done.
I did some more googling and found https://markmcb.com/2015/07/21/reconfigure-dell-perc-h310-raid-0-to-raid-1/.
Using that, I have managed to re-create a RAID-1 mirror in the second server without losing any data.
All I had to do then was boot the server into emergency mode, change the network configuration and reboot.
I'm not too worried about system state data as the servers are all built to the same specification.
The SAS drives are used to hold the OS (Ubuntu 16.04.5 LTS) and installed packages.
The servers are set up as Jenkins nodes and the 'real' work is done on a 1.6TB NVMe card.