Moving SimplStor Disk Groups (DG) between SimplStor Chassis
When moving a RAID Disk Group from one SimplStor chassis to another, disk drives need to be moved as complete RAID Disk Groups.
Terms:
- Logical Drive (LD), Virtual Drive (VD) and LUN are equivalent and refer to a unit of storage that appears to the operating system as a “disk drive”.
- Disk Group (DG) refer to a group of physical disks that make up a unit of RAID storage.
- Physical Drive or Physical Disk (PD) refers to a hardware HDD or SDD devices that occupies a physical slot in a chassis.
Identifying LDs and PDs.
To identify all of the LDs use the following command. The Virtual Drive (Target ID) for each LD identifies the Disk Group. In this example there are two LDs - the first is a RAID1 mirror pair and the second is a RAID5 group consisting of 3 drives.
# /opt/MegaRAID/MegaCli/MegaCli64 -LDInfo -LAll -aAll
Adapter 0 -- Virtual Drive Information:
Virtual Drive: 0 (Target Id: 0)
Name :
RAID Level : Primary-1, Secondary-0, RAID Level Qualifier-0
Size : 1.817 TB
Sector Size : 512
Is VD emulated : No
Mirror Data : 1.817 TB
State : Optimal
Strip Size : 64 KB
Number Of Drives : 2
Span Depth : 1
Default Cache Policy: WriteBack, ReadAhead, Cached, No Write Cache if Bad BBU
Current Cache Policy: WriteBack, ReadAhead, Cached, No Write Cache if Bad BBU
Default Access Policy: Read/Write
Current Access Policy: Read/Write
Disk Cache Policy : Disk's Default
Encryption Type : None
Bad Blocks Exist: No
Is VD Cached: No
Virtual Drive: 1 (Target Id: 1)
Name :
RAID Level : Primary-5, Secondary-0, RAID Level Qualifier-3
Size : 3.635 TB
Sector Size : 512
Is VD emulated : No
Parity Size : 1.817 TB
State : Optimal
Strip Size : 64 KB
Number Of Drives : 3
Span Depth : 1
Default Cache Policy: WriteBack, ReadAdaptive, Cached, Write Cache OK if Bad BBU
Current Cache Policy: WriteBack, ReadAdaptive, Cached, Write Cache OK if Bad BBU
Default Access Policy: Read/Write
Current Access Policy: Read/Write
Disk Cache Policy : Disabled
Encryption Type : None
Bad Blocks Exist: No
Is VD Cached: No
To identify the slot number of the physical drives (PDs) that make up each LD use the command line:
# /opt/MegaRAID/MegaCli/MegaCli64 -LdPdInfo -aAll | egrep "^Adaptor|^Virtual Drive:|^PD:|^Enclosure Device ID:|^Slot Number:"
Adapter #0
Virtual Drive: 0 (Target Id: 0)
PD: 0 Information
Enclosure Device ID: 155
Slot Number: 16
PD: 1 Information
Enclosure Device ID: 155
Slot Number: 17
Virtual Drive: 1 (Target Id: 1)
PD: 0 Information
Enclosure Device ID: 168
Slot Number: 8
PD: 1 Information
Enclosure Device ID: 168
Slot Number: 9
PD: 2 Information
Enclosure Device ID: 168
Slot Number: 10
Identify the “Enclosure Device ID” and “Slot Number” of the physical drives (PDs) you wish to move. You can now blink the locator light on the drive (rapid blinking red) using the commands:
# /opt/MegaRAID/MegaCli/MegaCli64 -PdLocate -start -physdrv[168:10] -a0
# /opt/MegaRAID/MegaCli/MegaCli64 -PdLocate -stop -physdrv[168:10] -a0
Move the Drives between Chassis
Using the commands above, identify the PDs you wish to physically move. Shutdown the system and remove the drives by releasing the locking lever and extracting the drive carrier out of the first chassis. You do not need to keep track of the slot number or order of the PDs.
With the second chassis powered down, insert the PDs into any available open slots in the second chassis. With the locking lever fully open, slide the carrier straight into the slot and seat it against the rear connector. You will see or feel the locking lever move slightly as it engages the latch in the slot. Closing the locking lever should fully seat the drive in the slot. Insert all the PDs before proceeding.
Now powered on the second chassis. During BIOS boot it displays a message that it found a "foreign configuration" and offered to import it ("F") or continue. Enter "F". After the system boots the operating system you should see the LD from the first chassis.