Here is my system:

I have dell poweredge 1950 PERC 6 with 300 GB raid system. It has two disks of each 300GB RAID mirrored system. I have few applications and data that reached around 280GB. As you know, poweredge 1950 we can have only two disk.

They are not mission critical. Hence, I wanted to remove the raid system and use as a non-raid system. By doing it, The applications and data can grow upto 600GB.

I do not want to loose the data and setup.

I am not so clear about RAID system and its conversion.

How can I do it?

Any link or reference will help me start with.

Thank you in advance.

Jiltin

Backup your files.
Reinstall your system - without raid.
Put your files back.

You have not specified soft, fake or hardware raid.

1 members found this post helpful.

I think it is software raid. I can go to setup during startup and change the raid mirror setups. I am not sure about it. My knowledge is limited on RAID and I do not exactly know.

When I consulted one unix person in my company, he said the same to me.
I just want to avoid reinstall as the data is 50GB and the re-install, setup takes another 5 to 10 days.

Currently, around 2000 to 3000 users are visiting the web pages. Hence, I do not want to disturb the systems to the maximum extend.

Hence, I posted this here. Is there any other way other than reinstall? If there is, let me know. Otherwise, I am forced to redo all the steps.

From your description, it very much sounds like hardware RAID, as entering a configuration utility at startup (prior to lilo/GRUB boot) probably is the LSI PERC controller config utility.

It might not be mission critical, but 2000-3000 users isn't a small number. I would be concerned in moving to a non-RAID solution for fear of hardware failure down the road.

It doesn't sound like you have the data backed up in any form at the moment. Is it 50 GB of data, or 280 GB?

Another possibility is buy another pair of larger-capacity hard disks, and to backup the data, then recreate a new RAID-1 mirror using the new disks, install the OS again, and restore the data. Then you have more free space AND at least some level of redundancy against hardware failure.

Hope this helps.

1 members found this post helpful.

50GB is critical data, while 230 GB non-critical data/application. I have a small core2duo backup server that stores daily backup of critical 50gb automatic nightly backup.

Both servers were running for the past one year. I never had any issue with dell 1950 server so far. Hence, I was thinking to remove RAID when the data filled to 280GB.

Thank you for the suggestion. I consider going to poweredge 2950 with more # disks or separate the 230 GB Non-critical outside of Hard disk.

Yes indeed - you have enough users to justify more hardware to support them. Though your comments suggest that money may be an issue here.

The install/config time looks ridiculously long, presumably you have something planned for a catastrophic failure? The usual approach is to reconfigure and test your failover server, switch over, and reconfigure the main server. OR some variation along those lines.

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