Hi all,
Can anyone please tell me, from experience, if it's possible to upgrade the hard drives in a RAID 10 system from 250GB HDD's to 500GB / 750GB HDD's, while the server is running? The server runs CentOS 5.5 x64.
Our hardware vendors simply always say no, so we never actually tried doing this, and when a client needed an upgrade like this we had to build a new server with the same spec and larger hard drives and then migrate the data across, which can sometimes take a few days to complete (due to DNS & MAC address caches).
So, I'm wondering, is it possible (and safe) to upgrade the existing drives to larger drives in a running server?
I know we're done this with Linux's software RAID many times with great success. But I don't want to take a risk if it's not possible. The amount of effort and upfront costs for a new server makes hardware RAID far more expensive than it's reliability, which Linux's software RAID offers equally so I'm beginning to think we should just move all the servers to software RAID in the future as well.
2010/8/13 Rudi Ahlers Rudi@softdux.com:
Hi all,
Can anyone please tell me, from experience, if it's possible to upgrade the hard drives in a RAID 10 system from 250GB HDD's to 500GB / 750GB HDD's, while the server is running? The server runs CentOS 5.5 x64.
Our hardware vendors simply always say no, so we never actually tried doing this, and when a client needed an upgrade like this we had to build a new server with the same spec and larger hard drives and then migrate the data across, which can sometimes take a few days to complete (due to DNS & MAC address caches).
So, I'm wondering, is it possible (and safe) to upgrade the existing drives to larger drives in a running server?
I know we're done this with Linux's software RAID many times with great success. But I don't want to take a risk if it's not possible. The amount of effort and upfront costs for a new server makes hardware RAID far more expensive than it's reliability, which Linux's software RAID offers equally so I'm beginning to think we should just move all the servers to software RAID in the future as well.
How about installing new raid 10 on same machine and just migrating data using rsync ? after some rsync cycles, just switching to new raid 10 storage.
-- Eero
On 8/13/10, Eero Volotinen eero.volotinen@iki.fi wrote:
How about installing new raid 10 on same machine and just migrating data using rsync ? after some rsync cycles, just switching to new raid 10 storage.
-- Eero _______________________________________________
What do you I do with the exsting data on the same machine? No offence, but have you actually done this before, or just guessing?
2010/8/13 Rudi Ahlers Rudi@softdux.com:
On 8/13/10, Eero Volotinen eero.volotinen@iki.fi wrote:
How about installing new raid 10 on same machine and just migrating data using rsync ? after some rsync cycles, just switching to new raid 10 storage.
-- Eero _______________________________________________
What do you I do with the exsting data on the same machine? No offence, but have you actually done this before, or just guessing?
Well, you can remove old disks after rebooting. Of course this method requires restart of daemons and rebooting is recommended. (remember to turn off disk fsck to avoid longer downtime ..)
I used this way to move data from disks to another. It might not be 100 procent safe, but it worked fine on my systems.
see also: http://www.linuxjournal.com/magazine/hack-and-migrate-new-hard-drive
-- Eero
From: Rudi Ahlers Rudi@SoftDux.com
Can anyone please tell me, from experience, if it's possible to upgrade the hard drives in a RAID 10 system from 250GB HDD's to 500GB / 750GB HDD's, while the server is running? The server runs CentOS 5.5 x64. Our hardware vendors simply always say no, so we never actually tried doing this. So, I'm wondering, is it possible (and safe) to upgrade the existing drives to larger drives in a running server?
When you said "we never actually tried"... tried what exactly? It depends... on your RAID ctrl of course... By example, with HP SmartArrays, you should be able to unplug a disk, plug a bigger one and let it rebuild. Rinse and repeat for all the disks. Then, you can expand the array... Although I did not try it so far.
JD
On 13.8.2010 09:45, John Doe wrote:
From: Rudi AhlersRudi@SoftDux.com
Can anyone please tell me, from experience, if it's possible to upgrade the hard drives in a RAID 10 system from 250GB HDD's to 500GB / 750GB HDD's, while the server is running? The server runs CentOS 5.5 x64. Our hardware vendors simply always say no, so we never actually tried doing this. So, I'm wondering, is it possible (and safe) to upgrade the existing drives to larger drives in a running server?
When you said "we never actually tried"... tried what exactly? It depends... on your RAID ctrl of course... By example, with HP SmartArrays, you should be able to unplug a disk, plug a bigger one and let it rebuild. Rinse and repeat for all the disks. Then, you can expand the array... Although I did not try it so far.
JD
CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
I've done this multiple times on IBM ServeRaid controllers as well as HP SmartArray controllers.
First, make sure your firmware is up-to-date (just to be on the safe side:). Unplug the first disk, replace it with whatever disk you want to add instead. Let the raid controller finish rebuilding the array and repeat the process.
After you have finished replacing all of the disks you can run the Raid Manager and resize the array.
But beware, some low end controllers do not support resizing of the raid array so make sure you check your vendors documentation :).
Bgrds, Finnur
Hi,
Firstly, I would recommend you spend a bit of time and workout RAID - what it means and what it does.
On 08/13/2010 08:50 AM, Rudi Ahlers wrote:
Can anyone please tell me, from experience, if it's possible to upgrade the hard drives in a RAID 10 system from 250GB HDD's to 500GB / 750GB HDD's, while the server is running? The server runs CentOS 5.5 x64.
Yes. But..
Our hardware vendors simply always say no,
Where it the raid metadata stored ? what kind of an hba is it ? what is the volume manager on there ? If you can answer those three questions, you can then workout what your options are.
Personally, the safest option is to go with with Ero has already pointed out, setup a new Vol, migrate your data.
- KB
On Aug 13, 2010, at 3:50 AM, Rudi Ahlers Rudi@SoftDux.com wrote:
Hi all,
Can anyone please tell me, from experience, if it's possible to upgrade the hard drives in a RAID 10 system from 250GB HDD's to 500GB / 750GB HDD's, while the server is running? The server runs CentOS 5.5 x64.
Our hardware vendors simply always say no, so we never actually tried doing this, and when a client needed an upgrade like this we had to build a new server with the same spec and larger hard drives and then migrate the data across, which can sometimes take a few days to complete (due to DNS & MAC address caches).
So, I'm wondering, is it possible (and safe) to upgrade the existing drives to larger drives in a running server?
I know we're done this with Linux's software RAID many times with great success. But I don't want to take a risk if it's not possible. The amount of effort and upfront costs for a new server makes hardware RAID far more expensive than it's reliability, which Linux's software RAID offers equally so I'm beginning to think we should just move all the servers to software RAID in the future as well.
If you create a bunch of RAID1s on the HW controller and use LVM to stripe them into a single VG, you can then pvmove LVs off a RAID1, take it out of the VG, replace it with a larger RAID1, re-add it to the VG, pvmove the data off the next one and so on.
This will require you to either keep 50% of the space free for moves, or free slots open in the disk enclosure. You will also have to manually resilver the LVs afterward to have them striped properly (create new LVs and copy/move the data over).
-Ross
Can anyone please tell me, from experience, if it's possible to upgrade the hard drives in a RAID 10 system from 250GB HDD's to 500GB / 750GB HDD's, while the server is running? The server runs CentOS 5.5 x64.
(snip)
So, I'm wondering, is it possible (and safe) to upgrade the existing drives to larger drives in a running server?
Assuming we're discussing hardware RAID then the answer is *maybe*. Some raid cards support array expansion through disk replacement and some don't. Your vendor may be correct in saying the systems doesn't, they may not. Only way to know for sure is to reviews the spec sheet of the raid controller you use and look for something along the lines of "Online Capacity Expansion" (IBM's term for the capability) or the like.
I went through this exercise recently with some older IBM server's I inherited in my department. We wanted to upgrade the disk's in one server from 36's to 74's and after consulting with my vendor, and my own digging, it was determined to be impossible. The new controllers being shipped otoh do come with the capability and I've made a point of only ordering cards with the feature.
-
Drew -
Eero Volotinen -
Finnur Örn Guðmundsson -
John Doe -
Karanbir Singh -
Ross Walker -
Rudi Ahlers