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Upgrade disks on a virtual disk RAID-1 array.
We have a PowerEdge T310 server with Perc H200 controller and two virtual RAID-1 disks consisting of four physical disks fitted on all four hot plug sockets at the front side of the server.
We need to upgrade the disks of the second virtual disk (data only). This array currently consists of 2 2TB SATA disks. Replacement disks are 4TB SAS.
Probably there is no direct upgrade path and we need to fit the new SAS disks, format them and restore the backup. This is rather difficult because many services need to have access on this virtual disk while the server is UP. We can of course have a downtime but this should be kept to an absolute minimum.
Is there a way to fit one or both of the existing disks in the inside, non hot plug, sockets in order for the server to operate normally, while the formatting and restoring takes place?
Will the server continue to recognize them normally?
Well, based on Dell's technical manual, there are 4 internal HDD slots. Also PERC H200 has support for 2x4HDDs but only 2 Virtual Disks.
In my understanding, we can fit 4 more drivers inside but we cannot create a third virtual disk.
So we are thinking of fitting just one of the current SATA disks in one of the internal slots while formatting and restoring to the new SAS array, in order for the server to operate and serve in the mean time, but we are not sure about the following:
1) Can we Connect a SATA disk in one of the internal slots?
2) Will the server recognize the data on this disk, since it came from the old Virtual Disk array (RAID-1)
theflash1932
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Posted February 12th, 2016 16:00
You usually can't use both internal and external. Even if you could, anything you did on the drives would be wiped out when you put then on the RAID controller, as RAID and non-RAID are not interchangeable or compatible.
When you purchase a Dell server with a backplane with hot plug drives there are no "internal" slots for hard drives. There are SATA ports on the motherboard but these do not interact with the H200 and to use these with a hard drive with you current configuration, you would have to "ducktape" the hard drives somewhere in the chassis and like Flash reiterated, it is not supported.
Admin4U
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Posted February 11th, 2016 23:00
It is not supported to attach drives to the backplane and internal SATA ports, beside the fact that there would not be a spot for them internally.