1U drive upgrade question

[I-install]

I am looking to know what the procedure is for upgrading all 4 drives in my 1 U server. Do I replace one drive at a time, waiting how long before moving to the next drive?

My goal out of this is obviously up my available storage capacity, not lose any stored content and finally keeping the 4 2TB drives intact so that they could be used in another 1U server as a complete file system.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[cinelife]

You can do that (swap one at a time), it's not recommended by K, but it has been done by many owners without any problems. Keep in mind that the first "larger" drive you swap will not add to your storage capacity because the system will allocate for RAID, matching the largest drive in the Server.

Given that you want to move your content to the new larger drives, your options are to do the swap one drive at a time method, or add a couple/few new drives (6TB's) and then replicate the content from the old drives to the new, NOTE: Requires the use of a second empty 1U server to hold the new drives for replication.

Jim

 

[cinelife]

Also, if you are buying drives to go into an empty 1U (second option discussed above), you will need at least two drives, AND they must have a file system installed by Kaleidescape prior to shipping to you.

If you decide on the swap a single drive, and wait for rebuild method, it's as simple as ejecting a drive, then replacing with a larger drive, wait for the rebuild to complete, then move to the next drive. No file system needed with this method.

Jim

 

[I-install]

Thanks Jim,

As always you are a very valuable resource here. I have a follow up question, could my 4 2TB drive array be pulled out of the 1U server and reinstalled in an empty 3U server and work? I know there are differences in the way the provide the raid backup, would I need to add a new drive to become the hot spare? In this scenario I could end up netting more storage by adding 4 new drives on top of the existing 2TB's I already have.
Just trying to explore all my options.

 

[I-install]

If doing the one drive at a time method, is there a file system left on the removed 2TB drives that could be used in an additional 1U server down the road?

 

[Transepoch]

You would want to add the hot-spare if you plugged the existing array into a 3U, or it will grouse about not having one.

Going back to your original questions, I wonder whether you would be able to re-use the drives if you went the fail option. While they would all still technically be from the same array, each drive in progression may think it is from a different one (ABCD, EBCD, EFCD, and EFGD) depending on how that is tracked (software partition vs. hardware.)

 

[AlienW]

I thought that disk sets are not interchangeable between a 1u and a 3u.

As for re-using individual disks removed from a set... They are not useable again unless still under warranty and sent back to k for re-initialization. The only exception would be if starting with a 1u with only two disks. You could take one out and put it in an empty server and it would boot up. In that case both servers would need an additional new disk to rebuild the raid, but this would get around needing to order disks with a filesystem.

 

[J.Green]

I thought that disk sets are not interchangeable between a 1u and a 3u.

This is not correct. If you take a disk set from a 1U server and place them in a 3U server, the system will boot and operate just fine. However, it will complain that the filesystem is missing a hot spare. Adding another initialised disk of the same or larger size as the largest disk in the set will solve the missing hot spare problem.

The reverse will also work. You can take a disk set from a 3U (assuming that it is 4 disks or fewer -- not including the hot spare) and install them in a 1U chassis and it will work.

One caveat: a disk set containing 10 TB disk cartridges will only work in a 1U+ server. They will not work in a 3U server or an older 1U server.

As for re-using individual disks removed from a set... They are not useable again unless still under warranty and sent back to k for re-initialization. The only exception would be if starting with a 1u with only two disks. You could take one out and put it in an empty server and it would boot up. In that case both servers would need an additional new disk to rebuild the raid, but this would get around needing to order disks with a filesystem.

This is not completely correct. In the scenario you describe above you will have created two disk sets with the same id which will lead to all sorts of problems down the road.

 

[AlienW]

This is not correct.

Thanks John, I stand corrected!

Outside of doing force fail up-swaps, and full set swaps between servers, the end user should probably not contemplate such things.

 

[cinelife]

Looks like Transepoch and Mr. Green beat me to the answers (thanks guys)!


Jim