Proliant server hard disk upgrade
Have an HP ProLiant DL360 G3 with 2 72GB drives that are mirrored. Using W2003 server SP2.
I want to upgrade the drives but don't have all the installed software, is it possible to upgrade without having to do a new full install.
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ASKED:
July 30, 2008 10:39 AM
UPDATED:
December 3, 2011 11:52 AM
Answer Wiki:
Are you asking if you can replace the harddrives to the system without having to reinstall the operating system? I'm pretty sure yuo can't do that unless the OS is on a DOM, even then it would make me uncomfortable.
I suppose it might be possible if you swapped them over one at a time, so the old drive would mirror to the new drive, then the new drive would contain all the info. I'm not sure if that would work tho (i don't know if all the boot info would transfer).
Good luck with the solution.
Actually that works very well. I upgraded from the 36.4 to the 72 that exact way. Took out Drive 2, replaced with the new 72, let the controler rebuild the now broken mirror. when that was completed, replaced drive 1 with the new 72, again wait for the controler to rebuild the array. It does copy the boot info as it's a hardware mirror and the drives are identical, bit for bit. The only thing that you may have to do is once windows has rebooted after the 2nd mirror rebuild is to go into Disk management and expand the drive to fill the whole capacity. At worst case you can have the extra space as a different partition, or use a 3rd party app to expand the partition to full size of the disk. Sorry I didn't see this post sooner, but atleast everyone knows for next time. ;)
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The easiest way to do this successfully would be to create a backup of the entire system (using your favorite backup software), replace BOTH disks and restore, indicating that during the restore process the volume should expand to the designated new size (probably the entire disk, but not necessarily).
If you remove one drive (whether the mirror was created on a RAID card or via the O/S) and replace it with a larger drive, the RAID metadata on the existing array member (the original, smaller disk) will be copied over to the new drive indicating the original smaller volume size.
If you **break the array** (giving you two independent identical drives / systems), remove one drive, image the existing system to a larger drive, add a second identical larger drive and then create the array, you should also be OK. And of course, if the process fails, you have one of the original smaller disks in reserve which can be used to re-create the original array at the original size.
No matter what you do, it ain’t gonna be pretty, nor is there a Q&D (Quick & Dirty) way to do this…
Oh, and Schmidtw – the boot info should copy, that’s not really the issue, the issue is (as mentioned above) the original array metadata which specifies the smaller volume size.
This sort of confirmed my gut instinct, that swapping the drives around would end up giving me the same volume size but with a lot of diskspace inaccessible on the new drives.
I’ll look into breaking the mirror, removing a drive for safe keeping then try backing up the system & data. followed by a restore to a new drive.
Thanks Guys
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Have an HP ProLiant DL380 G7 with 2 146GB drives that are mirrored. Using W2008 server R2.
I want to upgrade the drives , is it possible to upgrade without having to do a new full install.