RAID Array Relocation

[CeePeeBee]

Hi all,

 

I have a media server PC that's been running on my old Quad Core Q9550 for a good long while now. It's served me well and was running 24/7, to many devices streaming and transcoding, without issues. The problem is it runs a little hot, and it's starting to slow up a bit as well. I managed to grab a Sandybridge i5 from a local classifieds ad for a pittance, and I'm going to be using that instead as it's a much more prudent solution for some of the other things I've got planned to run on the box too.

 

My issue is I have a PCI RAID card in machine 1 with a 6TB RAID 1 mirror. I want to ideally re-use those same disks, without losing data, and relocate them to this new system. Priority would be to lose no data, but I'll share the options and people can let me know whether it suits?

 

1. Move the entire controller and 2 x 6TB disks (array) to the new machine? Would this retain the array needing only a verification, or would it need a rebuild?
2. Move the 2 x 6TB drives off the original controller, and onto a new hardware controller in the new system. I'm guessing this would need an entire rebuild.
3. Considering (2), can I break the mirror in MAchine 1, then move the disks independently to the new machine, and rebuild the array, or would that result in me losing data on both disks as it builds a new RAID 1 array?

Let me know your thoughts guys please!

 

Cheers!

[leadeater]

36 minutes ago, CeePeeBee said:

Move the entire controller and 2 x 6TB disks (array) to the new machine? Would this retain the array needing only a verification, or would it need a rebuild?

No rebuild, far as the RAID card is concerned nothing has changed from it's perspective. Moving RAID cards and disks between systems is supported thing to do.

 

36 minutes ago, CeePeeBee said:

Move the 2 x 6TB drives off the original controller, and onto a new hardware controller in the new system. I'm guessing this would need an entire rebuild.

Rebuild isn't required. The process to do this is to move a single disk from the old system across to the new system with a new RAID card and created a new RAID 1 array (with a single disk) and do not initialize the array. This will keep the existing data from the disk you allocated to the array. Once you've check that this has worked and data has not been lost you can move across the second disk.

 

If for what ever reason the move did not work and the data was erase move the disk back to the original system and rebuild the array, re-copying the data back on to the disk.

 

36 minutes ago, CeePeeBee said:

Considering (2), can I break the mirror in MAchine 1, then move the disks independently to the new machine, and rebuild the array, or would that result in me losing data on both disks as it builds a new RAID 1 array?

As above.

 

 

The other option is is have the two systems running, move a single disk to a new RAID 1 array and then copy the data across the network to the new array then add the final disk from the old system in to the new system, which will rebuilding the new array or in other words copying the data from the source disk to this new disks overwriting the data, with the same data mind you but it'll have to do it.

 

Also on the off chance your current RAID card is an LSI and the new card is an LSI you can just import the foreign array by plugging the disks in and scanning for foreign configuration, this is just another name for array import.

[CeePeeBee]

Thanks for the response!

 

I've moved the controller to the new machine and now Disk Man is being a little b***h and asking me to initialise the disks...no matter what I do I get nothing.

 

Put them back into the old machine - all good.