Migrating the RAID Level of a Virtual Drive

As the amount of data and the number of drives in your system increase, you can use RAID-level migration to change a virtual drive from one RAID level to another. You do not have to power down or reboot the system when you make this change.

When you migrate a virtual drive to another RAID level, you can keep the same number of drives, or you can add drives. In some cases, you have to add a certain number of drives to migrate the virtual drive from one RAID level to another. The window indicates the minimum number of drives you are required to add.

ATTENTION  Be sure to back up the data on the virtual drive before you change the RAID level.

Follow these steps to change the RAID level of the virtual drive with the Modify Drive Group wizard:

1.	Click the Logical tab in the left panel of the MegaRAID Storage Manager window.

2.	Select a drive group in the left panel of the window.

3.	Either select Go To > Drive Group > Modify Drive Group on the menu bar, or right-click the virtual drive icon to access the Modify Drive Group wizard.

The Modify Drive Group wizard appears.

Figure 72. Modify Drive Group Wizard Dialog

4.	On the Modify Drive Group Wizard dialog, select the RAID level to which you want to change ("migrate") the drive group to, and click Next.

The following dialog appears. The dialog states the number of drives that you have to add to change the RAID level from the current level to a new RAID level that requires more drives.

Figure 73. Modify Drive Group - Add drive to the current configuration Screen

5.	Select the unconfigured drive or drives to add, and click Next.

NOTE  The drives you add must have the same capacity as or greater capacity than the drives already in the drive group, or you cannot change the RAID level.

The Modify Drive Group – Summary window appears. This window shows the current settings and what the settings will be after the drives are added.

Figure 74. Modify Drive Group - Summary Screen

6.	Review the configuration information.

You can click Back if you need to change any selections.

7.	Click Finish to accept the changes.

A confirmation message appears. The message states that this operation cannot be aborted and asks whether you want to continue.

8.	Click Yes to accept and complete the migration to the new RAID level.

The operation begins on the virtual disk. To monitor the progress of the RAID level change, select Manage > Show Progress in the menu bar.