SCSI Swap

[kidicarus74]

I'm pretty sure this can't be done, but I thought I would ask anyway...

I have a server with 3 SCSI hard drives configured in RAID 5 via the RAID card's bios (3x36gb). There have CRITICAL information on them that can't be lost, but I can't use the drives for day to day use. These drives contain an install of Windows Small Business Server 2000

I have purchased 3 additional SCSI drives (3x136gb), and would like to remove the 3 original drives (by simply disconnecting them but still leaving them intact) and reconfigure the new drives and install Windows Server 2003.

My question is, once i configure the new drives, will I ever be able to reconnect the original drives and pick up where i left of with the os (server 2000) and data that is on them, or will removing them from the card and configuring new drives essentially make my old data useless

 

[DougLite]

Note the position of the current drives on the cable, do not change their jumper settings, and move them all out at the same time. Should a redeployment be required, simply connect them all back up as they were before. The SCSI BIOS should pick up the metadata on the drives and restore them to operation seamlessly, nothing different than havign the whole system powered down for the same period of time. The other caveat to this is that they will need to be reconnected to the same HBA as they were before, or a HBA with 100% compatible firmware/BIOS.

Of course, this is no excuse to let your guard down on backups. You should always do a full backup to removable media before changing hard disk configuration on any production hardware.