[TriLUG] Server Duplication... RFC

[Jason Tower]

i got a bunch of those 3ware warnings on my arrays (9500 8 port) when i 
first assembled them too, once it initialized it was fine and has been 
running flawlessly ever since (about 8 months).

also fwiw, i bought a 1u supermicro server this week (5013cmt) w/ 4x sata 
disks in it.  they work fine individually, even under high simultaneous 
throughput to multiple disks.  but it locks up hard if i create a md raid 5 
device and put it under any significant load (os was fc5).  sometimes it 
would even crash during mkfs.ext3.  so software raid isn't necessarily a 
panacea either.

jason

Brian Weaver wrote:
> 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
>