[TriLUG] Server Duplication... RFC

[Brian Weaver]

Hi All,

So my main server at home that I used for just about everything has
experienced a problem with it's 3-ware array. I *think* the card *may*
be developing a problem, but I'm not sure. The newest drive in the
array which *appears* to work outside the array failed (it's status is
unverified, something I need to find out since it's still in
warranty). I put another spare drive of sufficient size and it allowed
the raid to rebuild, but when I went to write to the array I got
errors like:

3w-xxxx: scsi0: AEN: WARNING: Sector repair occurred: Port #3

I'm getting LOTS of these warnings, which scares me quiet a bit. So
I've shut the box down until I can either replace it with 2 large
disks in a software raid or move the whole file system to a spare box
that I have.


In the interest of keeping my wallet in my pocket I was wanting to
move the whole thing to a box I already own, there is a question of
how though.

The current server is a single core (750MHz athlon) system. The *new*
old server is a SMP athlon MP system. I don't want to gut or move any
hardware so are there any good suggestions on how to move my Debian
Sarge install from the failing system to the backup system. I'm not
worried about keeping the OS on the backup system.

Here are my thoughts, help me refine it or at least find the problems
and trouble spots.

1) Boot the backup and primary server using a live OS like Knoppix or
the Debian Install disk in recover mode.

2) Repartition the backup root disk (hda) as necessary and format the
new file systems.

3) Boot the primary server into single user mode and start networking.

4) Rsync the primary file-system to the backup system

5) Use grub to install the bootloader on the backup system

6) modify /etc/fstab if necessary to reflect backup partitioning scheme

7) reboot and "watch it smoke(tm)"

Normally I just install an OS from scratch and then copy the data that
I want. I don't plan on using the backup for the extended term, but
until I have sufficient funds to replace the 3ware raid5 array with
two large hard drives in a software mirror.

anyone want to buy an old 4-port 3ware card? It's worked for me and it
may just be that the second disk I put in had issues of it's own. I
really don't know exactly what the issues is, but I don't have the
time to invest to find out what's wrong with it. I'm also of the mind
set to move to software raid now too. If the card were really to go
bad then I have no way to recover the information stored on the disks
because I don't know the layout used by the card. With Linux software
raid I can at least use the source to figure it out.

Thanks for the help

-Weave

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