Does erasing a virtual disk really erase the contents?

Hello

this warns me that when deleting the virtual drive with the MBR and data "All data on the disk will be lost" - or words to that effect. Is that really the case?

No, it deletes the metadata tags that define the virtual disk. The S300 does not support retagging arrays. When you create a virtual disk on the S300 it performs a full initialization. That process is data destructive, and it cannot be skipped.

The server is now running with the extra space, but without RAID. I'm just concerned that the steps I take to rebuild the mirror is actually going to take the server down completely!

RAID does not work like that. You can't convert your 1TB non-RAID disk to a RAID 1 disk and retain the data on it. There may be controllers that can do it but none of our PERCs can.

You will need to create the RAID 1 and then copy the data to the new RAID array. There is no process to convert the drives to RAID 1 from non-RAID.

I'm just concerned that the steps I take to rebuild the mirror is actually going to take the server down completely!

They will.

Thanks

Thanks for the prompt Reply Daniel.

OK, I seem to recall it was an Adaptec card that used to let me create a RAID 1 array from an existing drive so perhaps I was a little naive to assume to S300 would do the same thing.

I have a problem in that I use Acronis for the cloning and backups of drives, and because the S300 requires Windows drivers, the Acronis boot CD doesn't see the virtual drives. So I have an idea I'd like to run past you:

I'm guessing that the 4 drive bays in my T110 II are 2 drives on controller 0 and 2 drivers on controller 1?

If that's the case, can I move my blank drive and another blank drive to the bottom bays so they are on controller 1, and then initialise those and create a RAID 1 array?

If that works, I'd have a working single virtual boot/OS drive on controller 0 and a blank array on controller 1. I could then boot into Windows server and use Acronis to begin a clone from the single virtual drive to the array. 

Once the clone is done, I'm guessing I'd have to remove the single drive from the first bay as that is used for booting, and put the two array drives into the top two bays.

Does that sound like it would work? Can one just create an array on controller 1 and relocate it controller 0 and just expect it to boot and work?

Alternatively, I guess I could put the 2 blank drives in the first 2 bays and relocate the working, single drive to a SATA port on the motherboard and boot from that. Would that be a better solution?

Thanks again for your help.

The S300 supports two virtual disks. You should have no issue creating a second RAID 1 and copying data between the two. The boot virtual disk is the first virtual disk in the list. The physical connection does not affect boot order.

Thanks

Thanks Daniel. It looks like I have a solution then.

So if the virtual boot disk is"the first virtual disk in the list", am I able to reorder the virtual disks in OpenManage so that, having cloned my single virtual disk to my RAID 1 virtual disk, I can then switch across to the RAID one as the boot drive and reboot, or do I need to go into the S300 BIOS to achieve this?

In an ideal world I'd like to visit site, install the 2 physical drives, leave site, perform the clone remotely out of hours and then switch the boot device to the RAID virtual disk remotely too. Is this possible?

am I able to reorder the virtual disks in OpenManage

I do not think this is something that can be performed through OpenManage. I'm fairly certain this can only be completed from within the controller BIOS. There is an option to "Swap Two Virtual Disks" in the controller BIOS.

In an ideal world I'd like to visit site, install the 2 physical drives, leave site, perform the clone remotely out of hours and then switch the boot device to the RAID virtual disk remotely too. Is this possible?

You would need an iDRAC enterprise or some other form of KVM to rearrange the virtual disks from the controller BIOS. Alternatively, you could delete the old virtual disk via OpenManage, but then you would not have the data if something went wrong with your clone.

Thanks