PE2600 RAID Transfer

Question

This might have been brought up before. If so I apologize but I wasn't able to find exact answer to my question.   I have a PE2600 with integrated PERC4 controller and six SCSI drives. There are two volumes on this PERC controller:   RAID-0 -> 1 physical drive RAID-5 -> 5 physical drives   I think RAID-0 is automatically picked by PERC software if you want to have just one drive in the volume. My problem is that I would like to change/transfer RAID-0 (stripe) to RAID-1 (mirror) without loosing the data. I don't know if its possible but I don't see a reason why it wouldn't be since there is no spanning across multiple physical drives but I'd like to know for sure. I realize that I will have to break apart the other volume to free up a drive and restore all of the data and I have no problem with that. Backing up everything on the RAID-0 (system volume) then reconfiguring the RAID level, reinstalling OS and restoring the backup is way too much work than I'd like to do on a Saturday night.   thank you all.

notnotnot · Answer

RAID-1 requires two disks so I think your RAID-0 single disk will not convert.

sov2000 · Answer

well, yes ... but if I free up one drive and add it to another volume wouldn't you think I should be able to just mirror existing drive onto the new drive

at5147 · Answer

You can reconfigure from a RAID 0 to RAID 1 if you have another drive to do so. You should be able to do so within RAID controller's BIOS if up to date. There will be a 'Reconfigure' opition at the bottom.

Look here under "Reconstructing Logical Drives: RAID Level Migration and Online Capacity Expansion"

If you have Array Manager or Server Administrator installed you can do this while in the OS.

Couple of things to note. If would be best if the server was up to date on all firmware and drivers. And of course, make sure you have a backup of whatever data is needed in case of system failure.

sov2000 · Answer

Thanks for response! I was just a little skeptical because I didn't see anywhere in the manuals to address specific conversion from RAID-0 to RAID-1 or 10. The only thing mentioned is a transfer of RAID-0 -> RAID-5 and vice versa.

at5147 · Answer

Have a look here:   http://lsionline2.lsil.com/eSupport/esupport/consumer/esupport.asp?id=b1feba55-7aed-45b5-9c25-552cf60e4be4&resource=&number=7&isExternal=0&nShowFacts=&nShowCause=&nShowChange=&nShowAddInfo=&activepage=statement.asp&bForceMatch=False&strCurrentSymptom=Recontrust&searchtype=normal&searchclass=QuickSearch&bnewsession=false&selecttype=match   It shows you all the different levels you can go to.

PowerEdge HDD/SCSI/RAID

PE2600 RAID Transfer

Was this post helpful?