Moving A Unit From One Controller To Another; Moving Units From An 8000 Controller To A 9000 Controller - 3Ware 9650SE-2LPML User Manual

Chapter 8. Configuring Units

Moving a Unit from One Controller to Another

Moving Units from an 8000 Controller to a 9000
Controller
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After you have configured a unit on a 3ware 9000 series controller, you can
move it to a different 3ware 9000 series controller, and retain the
configuration on the new controller. This is referred to as "array roaming."
When connecting the unit to the new controller, you do not have to physically
connect the drives to the same ports to which they were connected on the
previous controller. The firmware will still recognize the unit. This feature is
referred to as "disk roaming."
3DM includes two features that help you move a unit without powering down
the system, allowing you to hot-swap the unit. The Remove Unit feature lets
you prepare a unit to be disconnected from the controller, and the Rescan
feature checks the controller for drives that are now connected, and updates
the 3DM screens with current information. For details, see "Removing a
Unit" on page 123 and "Rescanning the Controller" on page 131.
Note:
Moving a unit to another controller while the unit is in the migration state is
supported with one restriction. If the unit was in the middle of the migration process
and the controller was shutdown uncleanly, the unit cannot be moved to another
controller until the unit has recovered from the unclean shutdown. This may require
initializing, verifying, or rebuilding the unit.
Caution:
If you have a configured RAID unit on an older controller, such as an
8506, and you move the drives to a new controller, such as 9550SX, you must first
convert the units from 7xxx/8xxx format to 9xxx format using a 3ware utility
available from 3ware Technical Support.
You cannot move drives back from a 9550SX, 9590SE, or 9650SE
controller to an older controller and maintain the data.
swap drives back and forth between controller cards, be sure to have a backup of
your data.
It is possible to move your RAID units from a 3ware 8000 series RAID
controller to a 3ware 9000 series controller. You will then have the advantages
of the 9000 series controller.
The drive units must be in normal mode before moving the units. Incomplete,
degraded, rebuilding, or initializing units cannot be converted. In addition,
RAID 0, 10, and 5 units must use a standard 64 KB stripe size.
The procedure used to move units from the 8000 to the 9000 series depends
on the type of storage unit that you have. For most units, follow the steps
3ware Serial ATA RAID Controller User Guide
If you want to