Swapping Hard Drives between Smart-1 3150's

[Ruan_Kotze]

Hi All,

First off, all the best for 2021!

We recently had to do an RMA for an end user (Smart-1 3150 with 12 HDD's).  The end-user then subsequently notified us that they had no successful backups of their SMS (oh boy). I logged a ticket with TAC to find out whether we can simply move the Hard Drives from the original unit to the replacement unit, and TAC basically said it should work, assuming one keeps the HDD slot position the same.

I'm still a bit uneasy with the process, having never done this on an appliance that runs RAID (according to 3150 documentation this would be RAID 60 - single disk appliances of course not a problem).

So my question is, has anyone done this successfully, any gotchas to watch out for?

Any feedback will be greatly appreciated as always.

Ruan.

[_Val_ · Accepted solution]

Assuming the did not change RAID config, that should work. Number-label the disks and install them in exactly the same order to the same slot positions, with powered down appliance. 

Also, setting up a working and regular backup procedure with the customer is strongly advised. As part of the routine, backups should be tested from time to time.

[Ruan_Kotze]

Thanks Val, I do appreciate the response and confirmation.  We will certainly advise and address the backup situation and in addition to that the end-user will also be implementing an secondary management appliance for HA going forward.

If I may ask one more question, just to satisfy my own curiosity - why would it make a difference if the RAID config was changed?  Does the configuration on the transplanted HDD's need to match the configuration on the RAID controller of the replacement device, or would one overwrite the other, so to speak?

According to the device history the unit was ordered with 12 HDD's so I doubt any changes would have been made to that. 

Thanks again,
Ruan

[_Val_]

Yes, changing the raid config could lead to an impact. raid config should be exactly the same, AFAIK