Odd disk setup in Vmware, software RAID on top of Hardware raid?

[drnick5]

Hey Folks,

Just took over managing a server, and scratching my head at this issue.

Server is a Vsphere host, previously running on local storage, we migrated this to a NAS running a RAID 10.

In their main Windows file server, the previous tech's have 2 x 250GB virtual drives mounted, and set up in RAID 1 software raid. (presents as a 500GB volume).

The issue, they are running out of space. Any suggestions on how I can migrate this this software RAID 1 on the Windows server to a different virtual disk while preserving all the permissions? We have plenty of head room left on the NAS to carve out a new volume.

 

[Slaters Kustum Machines]

If it's showing 500GB then I believe it's a RAID 0 as a RAID 1 should show 250GB since it would be a mirror. What you could do is create a new virtual drive then boot to an iso that allows cloning drives. Or depending on the backups you might be able to restore to the new drive.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

yeah that RAID don't add up!
So within Windows Server, in disk management...it shows a software RAID?

Can you post a screenie of the current disk setup of this server? From within V-Sphere?
Typically it's as easy as moving the VMDK files to the new storage.

 

[drnick5]

If it's showing 500GB then I believe it's a RAID 0 as a RAID 1.

Ack, sorry, hadn't finished my coffee yet ;-) yes, its a raid 0.

 

[drnick5]

yeah that RAID don't add up!
So within Windows Server, in disk management...it shows a software RAID?

Can you post a screenie of the current disk setup of this server? From within V-Sphere?
Typically it's as easy as moving the VMDK files to the new storage.

Yup! Inside of windows, it shows a software RAID. In disk management I see 2 x 250GB drives, spanned and shown as 1 500GB volume. yeah sorry, its a software raid 0 in windows. not raid 1.

I'll get a screen shot of vsphere disks. You say its as easy as moving he vmdk's, but in this case, I have 2 VMDK's (one for each 250G drive) I guess my question is, how can I combine them into 1 without losing any of the permissions? if i simply run the command to combine the VMDK's, I don't see how windows would deal with this, since it would be looking for 2 virtual hard drives. Did i mention this data store houses their live SQL database?

*facepalm*

 

[drnick5]

Can you post a screenie of the current disk setup of this server? From within V-Sphere?
Typically it's as easy as moving the VMDK files to the new storage.

Attached are 2 screen shots. first is of the view in Vsphere (4 total VMDK's, HD's 1 and 2 are spanned together inside of windows).



Screenshot of Windows disk management showing 2 256GB drives, these are spanned together.
disk management.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

yeah..ugh..so confirmed it's striped (0).
To the best of my knowledge...with Windows software RAID....trying to ditch a RAID 0 to non-RAID requires a reinstall of Windows on a fresh partition, trying to think here...I don't even think you could "image" the server and restore it to a single volume. I've intentionally removed software RAID 1 from servers..."break the mirror" it's called. But never looked into removing software RAID 0....and I don't "think" it's possible.

I think what you're stuck with..is, if you look at the disk setup of this Windows server guest...it should have 2x VMDK files...on the existing internal LUN of the ESX host. I'm guessing you attached an iSCSI NAS that you made a LUN from? Just "moved" the 2x VMDK files to that...and edit the config of the Windows Server to use those. It's still a RAID 0. Dunno why someoine set it up that way...man....you just want to grab some techs by their heads and ram a brick wall a few times.

I would look into building a new server (guest)..in traditional format, and replace this server with that one. Sorta do a sidestep migration.

 

[drnick5]

yeah..ugh..so confirmed it's striped (0).
To the best of my knowledge...with Windows software RAID....trying to ditch a RAID 0 to non-RAID requires a reinstall of Windows on a fresh partition, trying to think here...I don't even think you could "image" the server and restore it to a single volume. I've intentionally removed software RAID 1 from servers..."break the mirror" it's called. But never looked into removing software RAID 0....and I don't "think" it's possible.

I think what you're stuck with..is, if you look at the disk setup of this Windows server guest...it should have 2x VMDK files...on the existing internal LUN of the ESX host. I'm guessing you attached an iSCSI NAS that you made a LUN from? Just "moved" the 2x VMDK files to that...and edit the config of the Windows Server to use those. It's still a RAID 0. Dunno why someoine set it up that way...man....you just want to grab some techs by their heads and ram a brick wall a few times.

I would look into building a new server (guest)..in traditional format, and replace this server with that one. Sorta do a sidestep migration.

Yeah, it seems like you can now see my problem. The only saving grace here is that this volume isn't the boot partition of the server, its just the datastore for SQL and some other data.

My thought is to create a new vmdk and attach it to this server as a new volume. Then copy everything off the fake RAID 0 to the new volume. Only thing I'll need to be careful with is making sure the NTFS permissions stay intact. Thoughts?

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

oh...I missed that....yeah that changes things. Makes it easy.
Yup....created a new VMDK on that new NAS you have.....and add a (3rd?) volume to this Windows Server.
move the shares...recreate.
Move SQL.

Several ways to do it.

 

[BlackLabTechs]

Depending on software available to you, I would most definitely create another drive as others have said and image the data over.