40 Using Your RAID Enclosure
Virtual Disk Migration and Disk Roaming
Virtual disk migration is moving a virtual disk or a hot spare from one array to
another by detaching the physical disks and re-attaching them to the new
array. Disk roaming is moving a physical disk from one slot to another on the
same array.
Disk Migration
You can move virtual disks from one array to another without taking the
target array offline. However, the disk group being migrated must be offline
prior to performing the disk migration. If the disk group is not offline prior to
migration, the source array holding the physical and virtual disks within the
disk group will mark them as missing. However, the disk groups themselves
will still be migrated to the target array.
An array can import a virtual disk only if it is in an optimal state. You can
move virtual disks that are part of a disk group only if all members of the disk
group are being migrated. The virtual disks automatically become available
after the target array has finished importing all the disks in the disk group.
When you migrate a physical disk or a disk group from one MD3000i array to
another, the MD3000i array you migrate to will recognize any data structures
and/or metadata you had in place on the migrating MD3000i array. However,
if you are migrating from any other RAID controller, the MD3000i array will
not recognize the migrating metadata and that data will be lost. In this case,
the RAID controller will initialize the physical disks and mark them as
unconfigured capacity.
NOTE: Only disk groups and associated virtual disks with all member physical disks
present can be migrated from one storage array to another. Dell recommends that
you only migrate disk groups that have all their associated member virtual disks in
an optimal state.
NOTE: Migrating disk groups from an MD3000i array to an MD3000 array is not
supported.
NOTE: The number of physical disks and virtual disks that a storage array supports
limits the scope of the migration.