Skip to main content

Raid Migration to New Server.

Thread needs solution

I have a new (Actually a Amazon Refurb) Lenovo P500 Server and it has no O.S. Not a problem. My current system is a Lenovo TS140 system with 4, 1TB hard drives configured as Raid 10. If I move all the drives from the TS140 system and put them in the new P500 system, will the new system say to it self, "Oh look, a RAID system with 4 drives. I'll just configure them in and boot up." Of course I will tag all the drives to the specific cables and SATA ports so they end up in the same ports on the new system. Will this work?

-John

0 Users found this helpful

Good question. It may depend on the RAID controller and OS being used.

Several times I have migrated a RAID 5 array from one PC to another by just plugging in the drives (SATA ports did not seem to matter). In each case the PC used the Intel IRST controller built into the chipset. However, in each case I made a complete backup of the array using True Image.

Ian

IanL-S wrote:

Good question. It may depend on the RAID controller and OS being used.

Several times I have migrated a RAID 5 array from one PC to another by just plugging in the drives (SATA ports did not seem to matter). In each case the PC used the Intel IRST controller built into the chipset. However, in each case I made a complete backup of the array using True Image.

Ian

 

Interesting. Yes I have Acronis backups on 2 separate hard drives. I was just concerned that the new system might put some kind of "Marker" or change the Raid configuration in some way that would screw it up somehow and not allow it to boot up on the old system if I put everything back to the old configuration. I'm from the old digital/Compaq field service engineer world and no matter what we did, the systems were always smart enough to figure everything out and never lose any data. I guess they had better software writers back then. I thought after 20 years, the PC world would would have caught up with what was so easy back then.

-John

It looks like both of those computers run software not hardware RAID. If that is correct, the configuration shouldn't be a problem. 

Where you could run into a problem is if the SATA controllers require different drivers. That could stop Windows from booting. What OS are you running on the TS140. Is it Windows 7? Windows 7 has a much harder time with new hardware than Windows 10 does. If both computer have the same SATA controller, you shouldn't have any problem booting.

Mustang wrote:

It looks like both of those computers run software not hardware RAID. If that is correct, the configuration shouldn't be a problem. 

Where you could run into a problem is if the SATA controllers require different drivers. That could stop Windows from booting. What OS are you running on the TS140. Is it Windows 7? Windows 7 has a much harder time with new hardware than Windows 10 does. If both computer have the same SATA controller, you shouldn't have any problem booting.

I have Windows 10 Pro with all the latest updates. Both systems have onboard hardware RAID.

-John

Given that, I'd be very surprised if it didn't work by just putting the old drives in the new computer.

Mustang wrote:

Given that, I'd be very surprised if it didn't work by just putting the old drives in the new computer.

Doing it this weekend. Will post the results when all is working well.

-John