Hi I have a Dell server configured as follows. On my Perc 6i controller I have 2 virtual disks made up of 6 physical disks (4 on connector 0 and 2 on connector 1). Disk 0 and Disk 1 both 136.12gb making up virtual disk 0. Virtual disk 0 is RAID 1. This is my OS system drive in windows. Disk 2 3 4 and 5 all 278.88gb making up virtual disk 1. Virtual disk 1 is RAID 5. This is my data drive in windows. These are my issues. I have no hot spare. The virtual disk 1, my data drive (RAID 5) is 836.61gb and has just 40gb of data rattling around in it. I have no spares to slot in should disaster happen. Now I personally think the RAID 5 is overkill for my data drive because its backed up daily and I have weekly acronis images of it. My main concern is my system drive (I have an acronis image of this too) because as I dont have any spares I dont have anything to restore my image to if both disks fell over. I also do not have any means of testing the image works. I'm worried that if both disks corrupted I'll have to sit and rebuild the server from scratch. Now this is the important bit. My options. The system drive will remain as it is. All the following relates to my Data drive where all the company files sit. What I want to do is remove the RAID 5 and simply have normal standalone disks NON RAID or RAID 1. This would mean I would have 4 disks to distribute as follows. Without RAID configured on the Data drive = 1 hot spare, 1 data drive, 2 spares for emergencies. With RAID 1 Configured on the Data Drive = 2 disks for the RAID, one global hot spare and one spare for emergencies. - does that sound feasible? - if I go with the NON RAID option do I need to change the disks over to the SCSI connection or do they stay under the Perc connector? - do I need to format all disks after i've removed the RAID 5? - How do I go about removing the RAID 5 and reconfiguring the system back to working order i.e. I boot up and peopel work as they do now accessing a D:\Data drive for their files? Any advice much appreciated. I need to get rid of the RAID 5 asap so I can get the disks configured the new way and set up the hot spare/spare emergency disks. Thanks Dan
If you are not using the capacity of the raid-5, just do this: 1> backup everything from raid-5 drive 2> delete the raid-5 array and make a new raid-5 array with three drives. 3> make the 4th drive a hot spare and copy your files back onto the raid-5 array. You will have to setup the share folder(s) again. ...or you could rebuild the drives in raid-10 and have reliability with speed (any one drive can fail, and 2 drives can fail at once if they are the correct drives) I know dell has terrible quality standards, but do you actualy think you will loose two drives at once? Fire/flooding/etc would be a bigger concern to me.
Thanks for your reply. I guess I probably could make it a RAID 5 with 3 rather than 4. Certainly a consideration. Fire and flooding is certainly an issue as all pcs and servers are positioned on the floor (2nd floor office though). Its a small company (only 12 users) so they have no forward planning at all and never have. I'm trying to introduce it but to be honest sorting out everything for them is above and beyond what i'm employed to do (look after their IT needs). I've offered monthly planning meetings but they refused.
