Server HDD Replacement Advise

[coreykeeling]

Hello All,

 

 

 

 

I am looking for some advice on upgrading one of our servers with new 600GB SAS hard drives from our current 300GB SAS drives. We would like to buy the drives and install them ourselves as when we have asked for quotes for installation it has gone over our small budget for the upgrade.

 

 

Our drives are in a RAID 5 array and we have been told by one supplier that we would have to destroy the RAID array and replace the drives and then do a disaster recovery. We can create the RAID array easily via the hardware interface of the RAID card but should we stick with RAID 5 or go with another RAID level.

 

 

How do we do a disaster recovery backup using Backup Exec 2012 on an RM CC4 Network without breaking anything when we did the restore?

 

 

The server we hope to upgrade is our primary domain controller and it is something we have not done this before so any help would be appreciated.

 

 

 

Regards

[sted]

depends on the array controller and you will want a good backup but i have just replaced drives in a raid 5 array with bigger drives one at a time until all 3 are done then expanded the array/disk in the array manager/disk manager so windows can use the space

[coreykeeling]

depends on the array controller and you will want a good backup but i have just replaced drives in a raid 5 array with bigger drives one at a time until all 3 are done then expanded the array/disk in the array manager/disk manager so windows can use the space

 

The raid controller is a LSI MegaRAId SAS 9260-8i.

 

Can you explain in a little more detail on how you accomplished this please?

[sted]

The raid controller is a LSI MegaRAId SAS 9260-8i.

 

Can you explain in a little more detail on how you accomplished this please?

dont know that raid controller ive only done it on hp ones. Basically when its quiet hot swap remove say drive one and replace it with the bigger drive and allow the software to rebuild the array give it a day or 2 to check its happy then repeat with disk 2 wait a day or 2 and repeat with disk 3. You should end up with a raid 5 of bigger disks and in the raid software and or disk manager be able to up the drive/partition size to reflect the new bigger drives

[supawat1]

I thought, why not just keep the current RAID 5 and add another RAID configuration on the same RAID card?

[dapaulio]

I thought, why not just keep the current RAID 5 and add another RAID configuration on the same RAID card?

 

I had an LSI raid card in my old backup server and have only just discommisioned it. It was good little worker for the price it was but it died after a fair number of years in service. it was a sad time... remembered as cheap and cheerful and a right hard drive HOAR.

 

I think some Raid cards see the port as occupied (this one included) and wont allow you to select it in a new RAID config without removing the first. i am sure i came across this and had to destroy the RAID when i upgraded with bigger HDD

[coreykeeling]

I thought, why not just keep the current RAID 5 and add another RAID configuration on the same RAID card?

 

I think we sort of did this last January when we needed storage for the WSUS role. Our server had two spare drive slots so we added two drives and put them in RAID 0 as we couldn't find a way to merge the drives with the current RAID 5. We could destroy the RAID with the WSUS on and add 2x600GB SAS drives but we would still have the issue of how to upgrade the other 4 SAS drives which are currently in a RAID 5 configuration.

[superaz300]

Hello,

I won't advice on the RAID choice as these guys have already done that. However, in terms of doing a disaster recovery on CC4 it all depends on what version of CC4 it is, i.e, CC4.2, CC4.3 or CC4.5. With the newer versions of CC4, you can use Windows Server Backup to create an identical copy of the server, and then just boot to a Windows Server Installation disc and instead of installing Windows, there is an option to restore from a backup.

 

Baring in mind, you would have to recreate 3 drives for the backup to restore, C for Windows, D for RM Stuff and H for the users.

Hope this helps.

James

[coreykeeling]

Hello,

I won't advice on the RAID choice as these guys have already done that. However, in terms of doing a disaster recovery on CC4 it all depends on what version of CC4 it is, i.e, CC4.2, CC4.3 or CC4.5. With the newer versions of CC4, you can use Windows Server Backup to create an identical copy of the server, and then just boot to a Windows Server Installation disc and instead of installing Windows, there is an option to restore from a backup.

 

Baring in mind, you would have to recreate 3 drives for the backup to restore, C for Windows, D for RM Stuff and H for the users.

Hope this helps.

James

 

We have a CC4.3 Network on a Windows Server 2008R2.

 

Thank you for the tips.

[superaz300]

Well you should have no problem in doing that. All you need to do is a bare metal recovery backup of the server, and test it out by restoring it do a computer and see if everything is working as it should be. Have you ever thought of going to a virtual environment such as VMWare?

[coreykeeling]

Well you should have no problem in doing that. All you need to do is a bare metal recovery backup of the server, and test it out by restoring it do a computer and see if everything is working as it should be. Have you ever thought of going to a virtual environment such as VMWare?

 

Switching to a virtual environment is something I would love to do but before I started this job someone quoted the school over £30,000 to switch over to virtual and so they have never looked into it since. Now we have no money to do it.