raid upgrade form 1.5T to 3T drives with 0.90 superblock

Hi All,

I have a raid6 array made out of 8 1.5T drives and I wanted to change to
use 3T drives. The array is 0.90. After reading the wiki I see that 0.90
superblock will not work with any device larger then 2T.

What are my options for a live upgrade (backup/restore is not possible)?

Thanks in advance.
K

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Re: raid upgrade form 1.5T to 3T drives with 0.90 superblock

On 6/23/2011 1:43 PM, Krzysztof Adamski wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> I have a raid6 array made out of 8 1.5T drives and I wanted to change to
> use 3T drives. The array is 0.90. After reading the wiki I see that 0.90
> superblock will not work with any device larger then 2T.
>
> What are my options for a live upgrade (backup/restore is not possible)?

The best way to do this, given that you have no backup, is to add a
known-to-work-with-Linux SAS/SATA HBA and build a new md array and
format it with a fresh filesystem. Let the 8 new drives spin for a
couple of days. If all 8 drives are still kicking, copy everything over
from the current filesystem with a 'cp -a' or similar method. If you
have NFS/Samba shares or other filesystem specific mappings, rsync, etc,
edit your conf files to point to the new filesystem/device. Run in
production with the new array for a few days or a week to make sure it's
working correctly, then remove the old array at your leisure.

This staged multi step approach gives you the best chance to avoid data
loss during the migration as even after it's complete you still have the
existing array fully intact until you decide to remove it. It is much
safer than rebuilding an 8 disk array one disk at a time. It also puts
much less wear and tear on the new drives. Another benefit is that
after copying the files over, the new filesystem will be much less
fragmented than in the case of rebuilding the existing array one drive
at a time.

If you don't have 16 disk bays and sufficient SAS/SATA ports in your
current chassis, and you can't leave a side panel off with the 8 new
drives simply sitting on a desk during the transition, then you should
grab an external enclosure, either desktop or rackmount, whichever fits
your needs, and an external version of the HBA. Some options are:

If you have 16 bays or can sit the new 8 drives on the desk next to the
server during the upgrade just grab one of these cheap LSI based Intel 8
port HBAs:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816117 157

If you must go external, take a look at these. A bit more costly, but a
better solution in the long run. It'll also allow you to keep your
existing array instead of replacing it. If you go with the rackmount
unit adding a 4 port HBA in the future will allow you to add 4 more
drives. Each row of 4 drives has its own SFF8088 port on the back.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816118 116
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816111 092
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816133 044

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Stan
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Re: raid upgrade form 1.5T to 3T drives with 0.90 superblock

On Fri, 2011-06-24 at 00:35 -0500, Stan Hoeppner wrote:
> On 6/23/2011 1:43 PM, Krzysztof Adamski wrote:
> > Hi All,
> >
> > I have a raid6 array made out of 8 1.5T drives and I wanted to change to
> > use 3T drives. The array is 0.90. After reading the wiki I see that 0.90
> > superblock will not work with any device larger then 2T.
> >
> > What are my options for a live upgrade (backup/restore is not possible)?
>
> The best way to do this, given that you have no backup, is to add a
> known-to-work-with-Linux SAS/SATA HBA and build a new md array and
> format it with a fresh filesystem. Let the 8 new drives spin for a
> couple of days. If all 8 drives are still kicking, copy everything over
> from the current filesystem with a 'cp -a' or similar method. If you
> have NFS/Samba shares or other filesystem specific mappings, rsync, etc,
> edit your conf files to point to the new filesystem/device. Run in
> production with the new array for a few days or a week to make sure it's
> working correctly, then remove the old array at your leisure.

I was afraid of this. I only have 4 empty drive bays in my Norco 4220
case, I will have to shut down the second array and remove it during the
time I'm upgrading. I will also have to get an HBA that supports 3T
drives.

> This staged multi step approach gives you the best chance to avoid data
> loss during the migration as even after it's complete you still have the
> existing array fully intact until you decide to remove it. It is much
> safer than rebuilding an 8 disk array one disk at a time. It also puts
> much less wear and tear on the new drives. Another benefit is that
> after copying the files over, the new filesystem will be much less
> fragmented than in the case of rebuilding the existing array one drive
> at a time.

I have before upgrade a 5 drive array one drive at a time without
problems, but the new drives were only 2T.

> If you don't have 16 disk bays and sufficient SAS/SATA ports in your
> current chassis, and you can't leave a side panel off with the 8 new
> drives simply sitting on a desk during the transition, then you should
> grab an external enclosure, either desktop or rackmount, whichever fits
> your needs, and an external version of the HBA. Some options are:
>
> If you have 16 bays or can sit the new 8 drives on the desk next to the
> server during the upgrade just grab one of these cheap LSI based Intel 8
> port HBAs:
>
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816117 157

This card is based on 1068E chip, it does not support drives larger then
2T. I already have 2 LSI cards based on the same chip and I will need to
upgrade.

>
> If you must go external, take a look at these. A bit more costly, but a
> better solution in the long run. It'll also allow you to keep your
> existing array instead of replacing it. If you go with the rackmount
> unit adding a 4 port HBA in the future will allow you to add 4 more
> drives. Each row of 4 drives has its own SFF8088 port on the back.
>
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816118 116
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816111 092
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816133 044
>


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Re: raid upgrade form 1.5T to 3T drives with 0.90 superblock

On Thu, 23 Jun 2011 14:43:15 -0400 Krzysztof Adamski wrote:

> Hi All,
>
> I have a raid6 array made out of 8 1.5T drives and I wanted to change to
> use 3T drives. The array is 0.90. After reading the wiki I see that 0.90
> superblock will not work with any device larger then 2T.
>
> What are my options for a live upgrade (backup/restore is not possible)?
>

I really am going to have to add --update=metadata to mdadm one day...

Simply stop the array and create it again with --metadata=1.0.
For safety specify all the details : chunk size, layout, raid-disks, as the
defaults might have changed.
Create the array 'assume-clean' to it doesn't try to resync. Then check
(read-only) that your data is good.
e.g.


mdadm -S /dev/md0
mdadm -C /dev/md0 -l6 -n8 -c64 --layout=la --assume-clean \
/dev/sda1 /dev/sdb1 /dev/sdc1 ....

You should specify --size as well ... otherwise mdadm might leave too much
space for a bitmap - I don't remember exactly.


Make sure you put the device names in the correct order. You can find this
order from "mdadm -D".

If you like you could post the output of mdadm -D and the commands you
propose to run so I/others can verify it for you.

1.0 metadata puts the metadata at the end just like 0.90, and the metadata is
smaller so the data will remain untouched.
Just this create command by itself cannot destroy you data so if you then
look at the array read-only it will still not change anything. Once you are
sure everything is OK you can start writing.

Oh, and of course do all this with the 1.5 drives. Don't try adding the 3T
drives until verything is stable.


Good luck,
NeilBrown
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Re: raid upgrade form 1.5T to 3T drives with 0.90 superblock

On 6/24/2011 7:23 AM, Krzysztof Adamski wrote:
> On Fri, 2011-06-24 at 00:35 -0500, Stan Hoeppner wrote:
>> On 6/23/2011 1:43 PM, Krzysztof Adamski wrote:
>>> Hi All,
>>>
>>> I have a raid6 array made out of 8 1.5T drives and I wanted to change to
>>> use 3T drives. The array is 0.90. After reading the wiki I see that 0.90
>>> superblock will not work with any device larger then 2T.
>>>
>>> What are my options for a live upgrade (backup/restore is not possible)?
>>
>> The best way to do this, given that you have no backup, is to add a
>> known-to-work-with-Linux SAS/SATA HBA and build a new md array and
>> format it with a fresh filesystem. Let the 8 new drives spin for a
>> couple of days. If all 8 drives are still kicking, copy everything over
>> from the current filesystem with a 'cp -a' or similar method. If you
>> have NFS/Samba shares or other filesystem specific mappings, rsync, etc,
>> edit your conf files to point to the new filesystem/device. Run in
>> production with the new array for a few days or a week to make sure it's
>> working correctly, then remove the old array at your leisure.
>
> I was afraid of this. I only have 4 empty drive bays in my Norco 4220
> case, I will have to shut down the second array and remove it during the
> time I'm upgrading. I will also have to get an HBA that supports 3T
> drives.
>
>> This staged multi step approach gives you the best chance to avoid data
>> loss during the migration as even after it's complete you still have the
>> existing array fully intact until you decide to remove it. It is much
>> safer than rebuilding an 8 disk array one disk at a time. It also puts
>> much less wear and tear on the new drives. Another benefit is that
>> after copying the files over, the new filesystem will be much less
>> fragmented than in the case of rebuilding the existing array one drive
>> at a time.
>
> I have before upgrade a 5 drive array one drive at a time without
> problems, but the new drives were only 2T.
>
>> If you don't have 16 disk bays and sufficient SAS/SATA ports in your
>> current chassis, and you can't leave a side panel off with the 8 new
>> drives simply sitting on a desk during the transition, then you should
>> grab an external enclosure, either desktop or rackmount, whichever fits
>> your needs, and an external version of the HBA. Some options are:
>>
>> If you have 16 bays or can sit the new 8 drives on the desk next to the
>> server during the upgrade just grab one of these cheap LSI based Intel 8
>> port HBAs:
>>
>> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816117 157
>
> This card is based on 1068E chip, it does not support drives larger then
> 2T. I already have 2 LSI cards based on the same chip and I will need to
> upgrade.

Good point. Sorry for the oversight. Now knowing that you have the 20
bay 4220 chassis, I'd suggest moving to a single LSI PCIe 2.0 x8 6Gb/s
HBA and an Intel SAS expander, to control all 20 bays and allowing 3TB
drives in all bays.

http://www.lsi.com/products/storagecomponents/Pages/MegaRAID SAS9240-4i.aspx

http://www.intel.com/Products/Server/RAID-controllers/re-res 2sv240/RES2SV240-Overview.htm

You can power the expander via the PCIe x4 edge connector or via a
standard 4 pin Molex PSU power plug if you mount the expander PCB to the
side or floor of the chassis with stand offs, which is the method I use
to save all my PCIe slots.

This combo will give you 2.4GB/s (4.8 bidirectional) throughput to all
20 bays, or 120MB/s per drive. You plug one SFF8087 from the HBA into
the expander and 5 such cables from the expander to each backplane. You
probably already have all the cables you need but for the HBA to
expander cable.

After transitioning the system from the current HBAs to the new single
HBA and expander, and verifying functionality, add 4 of your eight 3TB
drives to the 4 empty bays. Create an md RAID5 array of the 4 disks and
create your filesystem. You will have ~9TB usable space, about the same
as your eight 1.5TB drive RAID6. Copy all files over to the new array
as previously discussed, verify functionality.

Now take the existing eight 1.5TB drive RAID6 array offline. Pull all 8
drives of that array from the chassis. Insert the remaining four 3TB
drives and reshape the new RAID5 array to include the 4 new disks. I'm
not sure if you can reshape with the new drives straight to RAID6 at
this point in one step. If it's possible do so, go for it. If not,
reshape the RAID5 with the new drives, and when that completes
successfully then reshape again to RAID6.

If anything goes wrong, you still have the original 8 1.5TB drives
stashed in a cabinet somewhere if you need to revert back.

Hope this was helpful.

--
Stan
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