Dell MD3000 owner manual Using Your RAID Enclosure

When you migrate a physical disk or a disk group from one MD3000 array to another, the MD3000 you migrate to will recognize any data structures and/or metadata you had in place on the migrating MD3000. However, if you are migrating from a non-PV controller, the MD3000 array will not recognize the migrating metadata. In this case, the RAID controller will initialize the physical disks and mark them as unconfigured capacity.

NOTE: Only disk groups and associated virtual disks with all member physical disks present can be migrated from one storage array to another. Dell recommends that you only migrate disk groups that have all their associated member virtual disks in an optimal state.

NOTE: The number of physical disks and virtual disks that a storage array supports limits the scope of the migration.

Use either of the following methods to move disk groups and virtual disks:

•Hot virtual disk migration — Disk migration with the destination storage array power turned on.

•Cold virtual disk migration — Disk migration with the destination storage array power turned off.

NOTE: To ensure that the migrating disk groups and virtual disks are correctly recognized when the target storage array has an existing physical disk, use hot virtual disk migration.

When attempting virtual disk migration, follow these recommendations:

•Moving physical disks to the destination array for migration — When inserting drives into the destination storage array during hot virtual disk migration, wait for the inserted physical disk to be displayed in the MD Storage Manager before inserting the next physical disk.

NOTICE: Without the delay between drive insertions, the storage array can become unstable and manageability is temporarily lost.

•Migrating virtual disks from multiple storage arrays into a single storage array — When migrating virtual disks from multiple, different storage arrays into a single destination storage array, move all of the physical disks from the same storage array as a set into the new destination storage array. Ensure that all of the physical disks from a storage array are migrated to the destination storage array before starting migration from the next storage array.

NOTE: If the drive modules are not moved as a set to the destination storage array, the newly relocated disk groups might not be accessible.

•Migrating virtual disks to a storage array with no existing physical disks — When migrating disk groups or a complete set of physical disks from a storage array to another storage array that has no existing physical disks, turn off the destination storage array. After the destination storage array has been turned on and has successfully recognized the newly migrated physical disks, migration operations can continue.

NOTE: Disk groups from multiple storage arrays should not be migrated at the same time to a storage array that has no existing physical disks. Use cold virtual disk migration for the disk groups from one storage array.

Using Your RAID Enclosure

43