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I have 2 SSD disks configured as RAID 1 using RAID feature in BIOS. By chance if my motherboard and processor is damaged, can I connect these 2 SSD disks to another Server. Will these SSD disks boot on another Server. If not, is there any solution for making it to work.

Chopper3
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user13727833
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1 Answers1

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Dell PowerEdge T30 has a Software RAID (Intel Rapid Storage Controller 12.0) implemented by Intel C236 chipset.

To be able to boot you need to use a motherboard that has a chipset compatible with Intel C236.

If you need just to recover the data, you can attach those disks to a Linux machine, or, if you don't have one, boot form a Linux Live CD and use Device Mapper RAID (dmraid) to activate the RAID block devices: dmraid -ay

You can list the block devices with: lsblk

Then you will need to activate the partitions or logical volumes, then mount those partitions/logical volumes to be able to see the data.

Mircea Vutcovici
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  • Thanks for the info. – user13727833 Jul 06 '20 at 13:29
  • Once more query Mircea, can I prepare a normal mountable disk out of an existing RAID 1 disk. So that I can use it on any server. – user13727833 Jul 06 '20 at 14:32
  • Yes. but the procedure depends on the OS. Which OS you have on those disks? – Mircea Vutcovici Jul 06 '20 at 14:43
  • Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2016 – user13727833 Jul 06 '20 at 14:57
  • If you want to boot, I would make an image with CloneZilla Live, then restore on another disk, then boot from that disk and attach another one and configure software raid. If you just want to recover the data, you can attach those disks to a Linux machine and use mdadm, then mount the partitions and share them via samba. It is possible to do this in a VM that has those disks directly attached. – Mircea Vutcovici Jul 06 '20 at 15:03
  • Do you have 2 OS installed on that machine? – Mircea Vutcovici Jul 06 '20 at 15:04
  • No no. I just wanted to know the process for both OS. I will actually be using Windows 2016 on 2 disks with RAID 1. But also want to have a normal backup disk without RAID so that I can make it up easily with any Server in case of any failure in the motherboard of RAID configured machine. Just as a bootable disk ready for any Server. – user13727833 Jul 06 '20 at 15:10
  • I have Cloned a normal SSD disk to other in past so that I can use it in case of any issue with the original SSD disk. So can I also clone the RAID configured system into another disk as a normal disk (without RAID concept). Instead of making an image as u said. Bcoz cloning is easy process. Plz let me know. – user13727833 Jul 06 '20 at 15:14
  • If you are now configuring the server, then don't use the RAID from the BIOS. Use software RAID from the OS or a battery backed up RAID controller. – Mircea Vutcovici Jul 06 '20 at 15:15
  • Imaging and cloning are very similar concepts. They make a byte by byte copy of the original disk. The destination differs, for imaging it is a file, for cloning it is another disk volume. – Mircea Vutcovici Jul 06 '20 at 15:16
  • OK. What would be the advantage of RAID from OS instead of RAID from BIOS – user13727833 Jul 06 '20 at 15:19
  • You will not be tied to a specific hardware. It very mature. Has similar speed. You use Windows tools instead of some obscure tools that come from manufacturer of the motherboard. – Mircea Vutcovici Jul 06 '20 at 15:22
  • OK. So if I use RAID with OS, then I can mount the RAID disks onto any Server irrespective of hardware. Just it should support RAID. Correct? – user13727833 Jul 06 '20 at 15:25
  • If you use Software RAID from OS, you do not need the hardware to have RAID support. For some HBA you even need to disable the RAID support. – Mircea Vutcovici Jul 06 '20 at 16:50
  • if possible plz try to answer this query in SuperUser "Add a new disk as mirroring (raid 1) to existing disk" – user13727833 Jul 18 '20 at 07:19