Doing backup using the hot-swap feature

As long as you realize that that was never the design or intent of "hot-swap" technology, you might be able to make it work.

Every time you swap a drive, you will have to let the new one rebuild.  This can take up to several minutes per GB, depending on your drive technology, controller, etc., during which time your array is vulnerable to failure of the remaining drive and read/write failures.

This method is not foolproof and is not recommended to be your only backup method.

Which server, RAID controller, drive type and size are you working with?

Thanks,

I am using R610, 4C 2.4GHz. PERC6/I , 2x600GB SAS HDD

I am also doing system level backup, however being a startup, i dont have much resources to verify the backup.

The objective of this exercise is to install different version of linux (from 6.2 to 6.3), test VMWare HA and Redhat HA.

Each will be a new installation, thus wiping out my current installation

The steps that i was thinking of:

1 - set to offline slot0 HDD (keep as backup)

2 - slot2 HDD starts to syn with slot1

3 - reinstall the OS that I want to test

The problem that i face now is, how to restore the system back with the backup slot0 HDD.

You would remove both drives 1,2, insert 0, import foreign configuration in CTRL-R utility, then insert drive 1 or 2 to rebuild.

The CTRL-R ultility you mentioned, it is the setup menu?

CTRL-R is the configuration [setup] utility for the RAID controller, and is not the same as the BIOS setup (F2).

ngiamch...

In the past I used this method for switching my lab server operating systems, and I still use it for ocassional Active Directory DC backups on client  production servers, towards the nearing of Window's server tombstone life.

The major concern is the drive/slot contacts are no rated for constant pull/insert cycles. Personally I feel I would be pushing it if I pulled/inserted 200 cycles in the life of a server; as is I never come near that on client production servers. Also every time you do cycle drives there is a chance of introducing foreign matter into the drive slots.  

Thanks for your help

Hi,

Got a problem. 1 put back the original HDD 0 and removed the 1 and 2. Reboot the system.

The RAID created 1 VD(0) with RAID 1 for me.

I try to add extra HDD (1,2) but there is no option in the CRTL-R to add PD to the VD

What should I do?

After inserting/importing disk 0, when you insert disk 1, it will show up as FOREIGN, because it has a previous configuration on it.  You MUST clear the foreign configuration before you can do anything with the disk - on the VD MGMT screen, highlight the controller in the upper-left, F2, Foreign, Clear.  Then you have to assign that disk as a hot-spare for it to begin to rebuild into the RAID 1.