| Author |
Message |
Rob Walk
Guest
|
 Posted:
Sun Oct 24, 2004 1:56 am Post subject:
Upgrading my SCSI RAID drives, SBS 2000 |
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I have an SBS 2000 installation in an IBM eSeries server with three 18gb
SCSI drives configured RAID-5 with an IBM 4L RAID controller. I would like
to upgrade the drives to 36gb drives and was wondering the best way to go
about this?
One suggestion was to put an 80gb IDE drive on the secondary IDE channel,
and then using Acronis True Image Server or Symantec (Powerquest) V2i, image
the logical drive C: to the IDE drive.
Once done, swap out the SCSI drives, set up a new RAID-5, and then copy the
image back from the IDE drive.
I am open to any suggestions. I want to keep the existing OS intact.
Thank in advance. |
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Curious George
Guest
|
| Posted:
Mon Oct 25, 2004 11:17 am Post subject:
Re: Upgrading my SCSI RAID drives, SBS 2000 |
|
|
On Sat, 23 Oct 2004 17:56:32 -0400, "Rob Walk"
<no_you_spam_me@hotmail.com> wrote:
| Quote: | I have an SBS 2000 installation in an IBM eSeries server with three 18gb
SCSI drives configured RAID-5 with an IBM 4L RAID controller. I would like
to upgrade the drives to 36gb drives and was wondering the best way to go
about this?
One suggestion was to put an 80gb IDE drive on the secondary IDE channel,
and then using Acronis True Image Server or Symantec (Powerquest) V2i, image
the logical drive C: to the IDE drive.
Once done, swap out the SCSI drives, set up a new RAID-5, and then copy the
image back from the IDE drive.
I am open to any suggestions. I want to keep the existing OS intact.
Thank in advance.
|
Sounds good. But I would read the serveraid manual first. I think
there is a way of expanding the array while it is live so no
additional software/disk are necessary. (I don't remember the details
& have not needed to do this yet. I also don't think you need to drop
a ton of mony on a Flash copy license to do this either)
The 4L is absolutely awful for RAID 5 though (as I'm sure you know) so
it might take forever to pull, expand, and reconstruct all the drives.
Lack of cache is the main performance crippler so it does 1, 1+0, 0+1,
& 1E great. Now may be a good time to reexamine things and consider
1E or 1+0 and either a little less capacity or a 4th drive.
Per the other software in question:
Acronis TI works perfectly with the ServeRAID 4L. I think it is a
great way to provide point in time snapshots and quick bare-metal type
recovery of the "system state"/installed software (though I don't
really like it for other kinds of data backup).
I've tested the last few versions of Ghost corporate on that
controller but was unsatisfied due to lack of incremental backups, and
having to perform configuration to get it to see the array when
booting from a recovery disk. I also hated the fat limitations when
saving to a local disk. However since you are booting into dos you
can use the serveraid dos tools to do controller management and
restore ghost data without having to restart between the two.
V2i is good, but if memory serves - on the version I tested the
recovery disk only allows you to restore an image and not create one.
I like being able to make a block level image without installing the
software or booting into the system/partition I want to back up
(purely personal opinion though and irrelevant for single use). |
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Rob Walk
Guest
|
| Posted:
Tue Oct 26, 2004 8:16 am Post subject:
Re: Upgrading my SCSI RAID drives, SBS 2000 |
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|
Good info George. Thanks.
"Curious George" <CG@email.net> wrote in message
news:db8pn0h6m082rsdl0e6h2f38ukm415lr3p@4ax.com...
| Quote: | On Sat, 23 Oct 2004 17:56:32 -0400, "Rob Walk"
no_you_spam_me@hotmail.com> wrote:
I have an SBS 2000 installation in an IBM eSeries server with three 18gb
SCSI drives configured RAID-5 with an IBM 4L RAID controller. I would
like
to upgrade the drives to 36gb drives and was wondering the best way to go
about this?
One suggestion was to put an 80gb IDE drive on the secondary IDE channel,
and then using Acronis True Image Server or Symantec (Powerquest) V2i,
image
the logical drive C: to the IDE drive.
Once done, swap out the SCSI drives, set up a new RAID-5, and then copy
the
image back from the IDE drive.
I am open to any suggestions. I want to keep the existing OS intact.
Thank in advance.
Sounds good. But I would read the serveraid manual first. I think
there is a way of expanding the array while it is live so no
additional software/disk are necessary. (I don't remember the details
& have not needed to do this yet. I also don't think you need to drop
a ton of mony on a Flash copy license to do this either)
The 4L is absolutely awful for RAID 5 though (as I'm sure you know) so
it might take forever to pull, expand, and reconstruct all the drives.
Lack of cache is the main performance crippler so it does 1, 1+0, 0+1,
& 1E great. Now may be a good time to reexamine things and consider
1E or 1+0 and either a little less capacity or a 4th drive.
Per the other software in question:
Acronis TI works perfectly with the ServeRAID 4L. I think it is a
great way to provide point in time snapshots and quick bare-metal type
recovery of the "system state"/installed software (though I don't
really like it for other kinds of data backup).
I've tested the last few versions of Ghost corporate on that
controller but was unsatisfied due to lack of incremental backups, and
having to perform configuration to get it to see the array when
booting from a recovery disk. I also hated the fat limitations when
saving to a local disk. However since you are booting into dos you
can use the serveraid dos tools to do controller management and
restore ghost data without having to restart between the two.
V2i is good, but if memory serves - on the version I tested the
recovery disk only allows you to restore an image and not create one.
I like being able to make a block level image without installing the
software or booting into the system/partition I want to back up
(purely personal opinion though and irrelevant for single use).
|
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Rob Walk
Guest
|
| Posted:
Wed Oct 27, 2004 3:55 am Post subject:
Re: Upgrading my SCSI RAID drives, SBS 2000 |
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|
Someone told me you could pull an 18gb drive and put in a 36gb drive. After
several day it will regenerate itself. You do this untill all the drives
are replaced - no downtime. Will this work?
"Rob Walk" <no_you_spam_me@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:kbkfd.8933$Qs6.715917@news20.bellglobal.com...
| Quote: | Good info George. Thanks.
"Curious George" <CG@email.net> wrote in message
news:db8pn0h6m082rsdl0e6h2f38ukm415lr3p@4ax.com...
On Sat, 23 Oct 2004 17:56:32 -0400, "Rob Walk"
no_you_spam_me@hotmail.com> wrote:
I have an SBS 2000 installation in an IBM eSeries server with three 18gb
SCSI drives configured RAID-5 with an IBM 4L RAID controller. I would
like
to upgrade the drives to 36gb drives and was wondering the best way to go
about this?
One suggestion was to put an 80gb IDE drive on the secondary IDE channel,
and then using Acronis True Image Server or Symantec (Powerquest) V2i,
image
the logical drive C: to the IDE drive.
Once done, swap out the SCSI drives, set up a new RAID-5, and then copy
the
image back from the IDE drive.
I am open to any suggestions. I want to keep the existing OS intact.
Thank in advance.
Sounds good. But I would read the serveraid manual first. I think
there is a way of expanding the array while it is live so no
additional software/disk are necessary. (I don't remember the details
& have not needed to do this yet. I also don't think you need to drop
a ton of mony on a Flash copy license to do this either)
The 4L is absolutely awful for RAID 5 though (as I'm sure you know) so
it might take forever to pull, expand, and reconstruct all the drives.
Lack of cache is the main performance crippler so it does 1, 1+0, 0+1,
& 1E great. Now may be a good time to reexamine things and consider
1E or 1+0 and either a little less capacity or a 4th drive.
Per the other software in question:
Acronis TI works perfectly with the ServeRAID 4L. I think it is a
great way to provide point in time snapshots and quick bare-metal type
recovery of the "system state"/installed software (though I don't
really like it for other kinds of data backup).
I've tested the last few versions of Ghost corporate on that
controller but was unsatisfied due to lack of incremental backups, and
having to perform configuration to get it to see the array when
booting from a recovery disk. I also hated the fat limitations when
saving to a local disk. However since you are booting into dos you
can use the serveraid dos tools to do controller management and
restore ghost data without having to restart between the two.
V2i is good, but if memory serves - on the version I tested the
recovery disk only allows you to restore an image and not create one.
I like being able to make a block level image without installing the
software or booting into the system/partition I want to back up
(purely personal opinion though and irrelevant for single use).
|
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Curious George
Guest
|
| Posted:
Thu Oct 28, 2004 10:19 am Post subject:
Re: Upgrading my SCSI RAID drives, SBS 2000 |
|
|
On Tue, 26 Oct 2004 19:55:47 -0400, "Rob Walk"
<no_you_spam_me@hotmail.com> wrote:
| Quote: | Someone told me you could pull an 18gb drive and put in a 36gb drive. After
several day it will regenerate itself. You do this untill all the drives
are replaced - no downtime. Will this work?
|
I'm too tired to remote into the machine with the 4L figure out the
specifics on how to convert the 36gig array to an upgraded 72gig one.
I think you have to use an option like "expand the array" or
something. It should be related to the Mylex M.O.R.E. technology from
when IBM owned Mylex (if that helps). If I get time to look it up
I'll post. Read the man, though, as things are hectic for me now. |
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Curious George
Guest
|
| Posted:
Thu Oct 28, 2004 11:11 am Post subject:
Re: Upgrading my SCSI RAID drives, SBS 2000 |
|
|
It also is going to take forever and performance will go down the
crapper if you try to expand it while live. You only want to do this
if the machine CAN'T go down for a half hour or so while you do the
upgrade the other way |
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Curious George
Guest
|
| Posted:
Thu Oct 28, 2004 11:30 am Post subject:
Re: Upgrading my SCSI RAID drives, SBS 2000 |
|
|
On Thu, 28 Oct 2004 06:19:30 GMT, Curious George <CG@email.net> wrote:
| Quote: | On Tue, 26 Oct 2004 19:55:47 -0400, "Rob Walk"
no_you_spam_me@hotmail.com> wrote:
Someone told me you could pull an 18gb drive and put in a 36gb drive. After
several day it will regenerate itself. You do this untill all the drives
are replaced - no downtime. Will this work?
I'm too tired to remote into the machine with the 4L figure out the
specifics on how to convert the 36gig array to an upgraded 72gig one.
|
Come to think of it I think IBM calls it "Logical-drive migration"
(try putting that in the serveraid manager help search tool) and
you're going to have to use this feature set even if you use True
Image/V2i/Ghost in order to use all the new space without adding
additional logical drive(s).
OK, going to bed now ... zzzzzzzzzzzz ... |
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