Transferring working RAID from one controller to another?

Homdax

Distinguished
Aug 21, 2008
17
0
18,510
I have a Promise Smartstor 4300 (listed under legacy products at www.promise.com that has served me well for about three years. Yesterday it was blinking and the HDD indicators all messed up. After a reset I was able to boot it and get in to the web interface. RAID was ok. But eventually the fan lost speed and the NAS died again.

So I am thinking about buying a new NAS, I would love to get my hands on a Synology DS412+ but how would I transfer a working RAID?

As a workaround I might hook up a Promise Fasttrack PCI-Express card I have and connect the drives there to verify a backup to external storage, but my woes may be relevant even there: does a working RAID get properly detected when switching controllers, even within the same brand?

It is a bit typical, one wants a redundant backup and invests in that, but you are still dependent on one tiny chipset that may break any moment. Yes I have plenty more storage but was in the middle of a reconf of it. ;)
 
Switching controllers usually doesn't work. If it's the same brand, you need to contact their support as sometimes it will work and other times not. You best bet is to use backup software to backup the data on the raid, then restore that data onto the new raid.
 

Homdax

Distinguished
Aug 21, 2008
17
0
18,510
Well, since the RAID as such is connected to a currently non working enclosure/controller the only backup option I have is to do a sector-by-sector backup of the disks themselves. So far so good. That would potentially require 8 TB, since the HDD's are 2TB each. I do not have that available, I think.

I will try switching out the fan first, though. With some luck it might work. Spare parts are unavailable for this, at least at Promise and Ebay, but I have contacted their support.
 

Homdax

Distinguished
Aug 21, 2008
17
0
18,510
Got it running after a complete overhaul and cleanup, hoping it will be up so long as I need to check the last backup. Fan connectors were of course the wrong type, but it spins so far. With any luck I might be able to prevent data loss.

Need to rethink this. I mean, we use RAID to prevent HDD failure, but what about enclosure failure? I thought I was pretty safe having a backup of it, but I should perhaps consider a continous file sync instead. Not that I risked loosing a lot, nor anything vital, but the e-mail backup for the last week would have been a bit annoying.