RAID CLONING

[Jaxdax]

I have a proliant ML370 G3 with 2 RAID 0 partitions. One partition only holds SQL Data file so I have no problem with backing it up safely. However, the other is critical with both the system and an application that cannot be reset up so I simply need a copy of this system partition.

I do not have a redundant RAID but have a conventional IDE that is bigger than the RAID, can I be able to clone the RAID0 data and restore it onto an IDE?

Each of my RAID rack has a failed disk, not so good news with RAID0. Please help.

Jaxon

 

[4Ryan6]

Each of my RAID rack has a failed disk, not so good news with RAID0

Even if there is a software application that could successfully clone a RAID setup, if you have bad HDDs in the array, you're pretty much dead in the water.

You'll have to get a replacement HDD and rebuild the array.

 

[4Ryan6]

Well after doing a little research on the subject I've discovered a couple of things to share with you, if the bad HDD is completely hardware dead, there is nothing you can do.

If the HDD is having communication problems showing up consistently as a dirty drive, a bad HDD can sometimes be successfully directly cloned to a replacement HDD using a program such as Acronis True Image.

Sometimes it can be reinserted in the RAID0 array and function with no loss, but it would need to be an identical drive it is replacing.

It is possible to clone a RAID0 array, however it is seen as 1 HDD and will clone as a single image, say you have 2 80G HDDs in RAID0, its seen as 1 160G HDD, you can clone the array to a 160G or larger HDD using Acronis.

That would be basically for backup salvage, or running it as a single master by itself, because you cannot do the reverse, you cannot back clone the single image to the RAID0 configuration, that is impossible.

All this info has been obtained from the Acronis support, there are other cloning applications besides Acronis like Ghost, but this is what can be done with Acronis according to them.

I personally have never backed up a RAID0 to a single HDD myself so I have no personal experience there, just going on Acronis information.

I have had plenty of past experience with RAID arrays experimenting with them with RAID0 and RAID1, today I only run a single large HDD, as my past experiences sometimes led to complete loss of data.

So now I backup whats important to 3 stand alone USB 2.0 external HDDs and if the main HDD fails, I don't loose anything really important to me.

Hope things work out for you! Ryan