Convert from JBOD to RAID: Can I keep the data?

[NovemberMike]

I am running a server on Windows Server 2003 with 2 500GB hard drives set up in JBOD. I was thinking about adding another two hard drives of the same capacity and turning it into a RAID 5 setup, but I don't know if there is a good way to set everything up so I don't have to reinstall the server software (would be more of a pain than anything, as I have access to a free license). Is there any software that I could use, or would I be better off just keeping the four disks separate and doing regular backups to another computer (which I already do)?

 

[Anarchist4000]

I guess it really depends on what you're putting on the drives. Also the RAID controller being used might change your options. With 4 large drives RAID5 would be good for getting space unless you've just been using RAID0. There aren't a whole lot of tasks where you'd need to access more than 2-3 volumes at once.

If you can get 3 drives cleared off you could create a RAID5 and if online capacity expansion is available get that 4th drive added eventually.

Personally I'd go with a pair of RAID0 or RAID1 arrays and split the workload between them. Having a separate drive for windows can always be useful.

 

[ShaidarHaran]

Get a spare drive and image your JBOD to it. Install the other drives. Create array. Image spare drive to array.

Viola!

 

[NovemberMike]

Get a spare drive and image your JBOD to it. Install the other drives. Create array. Image spare drive to array.

Viola!

That was what I was thinking. I have enough DVD RW's that I could simply burn an image to them, set up the RAID5 and then restore the image.

Personally I'd go with a pair of RAID0 or RAID1 arrays and split the workload between them. Having a separate drive for windows can always be useful.

That was the other idea I was thinking about. Having a single drive set to be the C: drive, and the other three drives set up as RAID 5. Then I get a large (500GB+) external hard drive, put an image of the C: drive on it and regular backups of the RAID array... This way I wouldn't have to do too much reinstalling of stuff, I would keep the same amount of storage space and the external backup hard-drive is always good to have...

 

[ShaidarHaran]

That was the other idea I was thinking about. Having a single drive set to be the C: drive, and the other three drives set up as RAID 5. Then I get a large (500GB+) external hard drive, put an image of the C: drive on it and regular backups of the RAID array... This way I wouldn't have to do too much reinstalling of stuff, I would keep the same amount of storage space and the external backup hard-drive is always good to have...

But then you're permanently adding yet another drive to the equation for redundancy purposes, when the whole point of RAID 5 is redundancy. Better just to stick with a single volume RAID 5 array.

 

[NovemberMike]

But then you're permanently adding yet another drive to the equation for redundancy purposes, when the whole point of RAID 5 is redundancy. Better just to stick with a single volume RAID 5 array.

RAID 5 only does redundancy for drive failures. The extra external Hard Drive provides redundancy against things like malicious attacks, Stupid User Error, accidentally deleting something I didn't want to and also provides data security for my other hard drives.

Maybe its just me, but I don't see RAID as a final redundancy solution. It protects you from having a drive kill itself and lose everything, but a good backup option is usually better for that kind of thing because it also protects against anything else that can happen. I like it because it simplifies my drive system and provides some security, but I would never use it as my last line of defense.

 

[BRiT]

Look into Undelete or something like it to protect against some Stupid User Error and Accidental Deletes.

 

[NovemberMike]

Look into Undelete or something like it to protect against some Stupid User Error and Accidental Deletes.

Nifty...

 

[ShaidarHaran]

RAID 5 only does redundancy for drive failures. The extra external Hard Drive provides redundancy against things like malicious attacks, Stupid User Error, accidentally deleting something I didn't want to and also provides data security for my other hard drives.

Maybe its just me, but I don't see RAID as a final redundancy solution. It protects you from having a drive kill itself and lose everything, but a good backup option is usually better for that kind of thing because it also protects against anything else that can happen. I like it because it simplifies my drive system and provides some security, but I would never use it as my last line of defense.

Well the more redundancy the better, certainly. I've had very good experiences with RAID 1 & 5 with customer systems as a technician for the last several years. In almost every case of drive failure I've come across the customer was able to keep using their system while they waited for the faulty drive to be replaced, only to have to simply swap the drive and rebuild the array when it arrived, with absolutely no down time. Of course, you already know the benefits of RAID or you wouldn't be planning a RAID 5 array

 

[NovemberMike]

Well the more redundancy the better, certainly. I've had very good experiences with RAID 1 & 5 with customer systems as a technician for the last several years. In almost every case of drive failure I've come across the customer was able to keep using their system while they waited for the faulty drive to be replaced, only to have to simply swap the drive and rebuild the array when it arrived, with absolutely no down time. Of course, you already know the benefits of RAID or you wouldn't be planning a RAID 5 array

Of course. I think that I will probably just be going with the "Reimage Server to DVD's, set it up as RAID 5 and put the image back up" option, since RAID 5 will more than fulfill my needs, but I was trying to think about some other options as well (although I think it got a bit to complicated and expensive for me to want to implement it).

 

[ShaidarHaran]

Well, if you want the best possible setup it's to have an external hard drive setup to automatically create a new image nightly, as well as a master DVD image backup physically stored in a separate location (like at work or a friend's house or something).

 

[Frank]

The general solution is two drives in mirror (RAID 1) for the OS, and a bunch of drives in RAID 6 (RAID 5 + hot spare) for the data. You can skip the second OS drive if you've got an image and don't install additional stuff on it.

And you can simply buy a harddisk that is the size of the JBOD, copy it over, and start from there.