Re: HP Proliant ML350

Chris Rennert wrote:[color=blue]
> We have that ProLiant ML350, we have 3 Ultra320 36.4gb Hard drives (I
> believe they are HP drives). Well, I have a feeling they are running
> Raid 0 instead of Raid 1 , and I believe that was a reason that when we
> had a drive fail in the machine another time, it took out windows as
> well. Is there a way on the ML350 I can view what Raid it is running.
> With 3 drives I would have a hard time believing they are doing
> mirroring. Also, if it is running Raid 0 , can I purchase 2 more
> drives, and run Raid 1 instead? Couple issues, the 36.4gb HD's are only
> 20 cheaper than the 72.8gb drive. Can I mix and match drive sizes.
>
> The raid controller is a "Smart Array 532";
>
>
> Thank you all for any help you can give me![/color]
Ok, figured more information out. It is running Raid 5, and again we
have 3 36.4gb Ultra320 disks. In windows, it is configured as one 70gb
logical drive, partitioned into 2 basic drives , an 8gb, system
partition, and a 62gb, data patition (C: & D: respectively).

My issue is 2 years ago, one of the drives failed, bringing down the
whole system , and from what I understand the Boot sector is not
protected, and I believe this is why we had to reinstall to recover.

My thought is to purchase more drives, and migrate to Raid 1, because
fault tolerance is much more important to us than performance. I am not
sure if I am missing something, or if there is a better solution.

I appreciate once again any help you can give me :-)

Chris

"Chris Rennert" <crennert@new.rr.com> wrote in message
news:435921e4$0$32200$39cecf19@news.twtelecom.net...[color=blue]
> Chris Rennert wrote:[color=green]
>> We have that ProLiant ML350, we have 3 Ultra320 36.4gb Hard drives (I
>> believe they are HP drives). Well, I have a feeling they are running
>> Raid 0 instead of Raid 1 , and I believe that was a reason that when we
>> had a drive fail in the machine another time, it took out windows as
>> well. Is there a way on the ML350 I can view what Raid it is running.
>> With 3 drives I would have a hard time believing they are doing
>> mirroring. Also, if it is running Raid 0 , can I purchase 2 more drives,
>> and run Raid 1 instead? Couple issues, the 36.4gb HD's are only 20
>> cheaper than the 72.8gb drive. Can I mix and match drive sizes.
>>
>> The raid controller is a "Smart Array 532";
>>
>>
>> Thank you all for any help you can give me![/color]
> Ok, figured more information out. It is running Raid 5, and again we have
> 3 36.4gb Ultra320 disks. In windows, it is configured as one 70gb logical
> drive, partitioned into 2 basic drives , an 8gb, system partition, and a
> 62gb, data patition (C: & D: respectively).
>
> My issue is 2 years ago, one of the drives failed, bringing down the whole
> system , and from what I understand the Boot sector is not protected, and
> I believe this is why we had to reinstall to recover.
>
> My thought is to purchase more drives, and migrate to Raid 1, because
> fault tolerance is much more important to us than performance. I am not
> sure if I am missing something, or if there is a better solution.
>
> I appreciate once again any help you can give me :-)
>
> Chris[/color]


I may be wrong but I thought that hardware RAID 5 would protect everything
if one driver failed. RAID 1 should work, but I don't see an easy way to
change from 5 to 1 without removing the existing partitions, but this maybe
because I am looking at my server RAID configuration, which is an older
version. I have a ProLiant 800 with five 9.1GB drivers in a RAID 5 array on
a Compaq 2DH RAID controller.


James

On the seventh day, Chris Rennert wrote...
[color=blue]
> Ok, figured more information out. It is running Raid 5, and again we
> have 3 36.4gb Ultra320 disks. In windows, it is configured as one 70gb
> logical drive, partitioned into 2 basic drives , an 8gb, system
> partition, and a 62gb, data patition (C: & D: respectively).
>
> My issue is 2 years ago, one of the drives failed, bringing down the
> whole system , and from what I understand the Boot sector is not
> protected, and I believe this is why we had to reinstall to recover.[/color]

well, unless you prove me otherwise, I don't believe that's the reason. I
suspect that either you were running no RAID5 at the time or a combination
of RAID-array and a basic non-RAID partition on an arrayed disk, if that's
at all possible with your hardware/driver combination. It is nowadays with
several low-budget controllers, so I don't see any reason why your
expensive high-profile hardware shouldn't be able to do this.
Of course, if you were running a RAID5 then, your controller and your
software should have seen one drive fail and instantaneously and - most of
all - transparently recover from this crisis by replacing the failed drive.
[color=blue]
> My thought is to purchase more drives, and migrate to Raid 1, because
> fault tolerance is much more important to us than performance. I am not
> sure if I am missing something, or if there is a better solution.[/color]

If you were asking me, I'd say there is nothing more secure in terms of
fault tolerance than a RAID5-Array. ;-)
[color=blue]
> I appreciate once again any help you can give me :-)[/color]

HTH

--
mit freundlichen Grüßen/with kind regards
Christian Dürrhauer, Institute of Geography, FU Berlin

Elliot: How do you explain school to a higher intelligence?