RAID 1: breaking mirrors and rebuilding drives, 4th Edition

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RAID 1(+0): breaking mirrors and

rebuilding drives

How to, 5

edition

Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 2

Splitting a mirrored array using the Array Configuration Utility .................................................................. 2

Recombining a split mirrored array using ACU ........................................................................................ 3

Breaking a mirror and rebuilding the array using the manual method ........................................................ 4

Reverting to a previous copy of a mirrored set using the manual method .................................................... 6

Increasing RAID 1(+0) capacity—array expansion versus breaking mirrors ................................................. 7

For more information ............................................................................................................................ 9

Call to action ...................................................................................................................................... 9

Summary of content (9 pages)

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RAID 1(+0): breaking mirrors and rebuilding drives How to, 5th edition Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 2 Splitting a mirrored array using the Array Configuration Utility.................................................................. 2 Recombining a split mirrored array using ACU........................................................................................
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Introduction This paper explains the two methods for safely breaking a RAID 1 or RAID 1(+0) mirror and rebuilding drives in RAID 1(+0) volumes using HP Smart Array controllers. The first method uses the HP Array Configuration Utility (ACU) split mirror feature. You can only use this method while a server is offline and it requires an HP Smart Array Advanced Pack (SAAP) license. You can also use a manual method with any Smart Array controller.
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10. Power off the server. 11. Remove the physical drives that constitute one of the new arrays. IMPORTANT If you do not remove one of the arrays, the OS cannot distinguish between the two new arrays when the OS restarts because the arrays will be identical. 12. Restart the OS. Recombining a split mirrored array using ACU Complete the following steps to re-mirror an array using ACU: 1.
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Breaking a mirror and rebuilding the array using the manual method CAUTION Use the following procedure for configurations with only one array on the controller. If you configure multiple arrays on a single controller, all arrays must be broken and restored together. Because of the added complexity for multiple arrays, we discourage this method of creating a backup of the logical driver. You can break a RAID 1 or RAID 1(+0) mirror simply by removing a drive while the server is online.
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Figure 1. Boot-up message indicating that the logical drive is still available but missing physical drives NOTE If the logical drive fails and the server will not boot, you probably removed two drives that were mirrored to one another. Shut down the server if this occurs. Reinstall all drives and reboot. The drives mirrored to one another will be marked okay. All data should remain intact. Start again at step 1, being careful not to remove any drives mirrored to one another. 8.
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Reverting to a previous copy of a mirrored set using the manual method This method works only if you used the manual method to break the mirrored set. CAUTION We strongly recommend that you verify that you have removed all drives from the current array before inserting the backup drives (step 1 below). Any drive that became part of the array during a rebuild process can OVERWRITE the BACKUP drive.
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Figure 2. Boot-up message indicating the controller found no logical drives. 6. During boot-up, the message will indicate that the drives are not responding (Figure 1). 7. Press F2 to fail the missing drive and continue with one drive in recovery mode. 8. Insert the drive you want to rebuild into the open drive bay. 9. The array rebuild should start automatically. If the rebuild does not start, run ACU to initiate the rebuild. CAUTION You must hot insert the drives you want to rebuild.
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array. Once you have expanded the array, you can either add new logical drives or use the Logical Drive Extension function to grow the size of the existing logical drives. Using array expansion is the easiest way to grow capacity if you have additional drive slots available. If they are not available, then your only option is to break the RAID mirror and rebuild with larger capacity drives.
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For more information Resource description Web address Business Support Center for HP Array Configuration Utility http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Home.jsp?la ng=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=18964&prodSeriesId=468780 Configuring Arrays on HP Smart Array Controllers Reference Guide http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c00 729544/c00729544.pdf Smart Array Advanced Pack (SAAP) www.hp.com/go/saap Call to action Send comments about this paper to TechCom@HP.com.