Copy physical RDM between SAN

[henrikp80]

Hi

We have two virtual MSCS and we are now in a project to change SAN. The two cluster use physical RDM disk. It's one SQL 2008 and one Biztalk 2009. Both Windows 2008 x64.

Our present SAN cannot communicate with the new one so I have to copy the RDM-data thru vmware (SSH).

So, I run this command:

vmkfstools --clonevirtualdisk /vmfs/volumes/Datastore01/SQLSRV01/SQLSRV01.vmdk /vmfs/volumes/NewSAN/Datastore01/SQLSRV01_Mig/Data.vmdk --diskformat rdmp:/vmfs/devices/disks/naa.60002ac0000000000000009c00004936 << the new SAN

In one of the cluster, its 7 disks. And 6 of them works great, but the 7th. It wont work. The copying works well but it wont go online in the cluster. I think it has to do something with the disk id. And no, can't do repair on it.

Has anyone experince this before and know how to solve it?

[a_p_]

Only a guess. Can you confirm the source .vmdk shows the correct size of the RDM? In case the raw LUN has been resized after the RDM was created, the size information in the .vmdk header file may not match the real LUN size and therefore the vmkfstools command will not copy all data. In case of an MBR partition you will be "just" missing data, but in case of a GPT partition table you might be missing the protective header/table.

André

[henrikp80]

Hi Andre

The source VMDK shows the correct size as well as the new one. The RDM LUN has actually been extended but that has all of them and it's only this one thats causes trouble.

[a_p_]

To ensure I understand this correctly, did you move the cluster configuration (i.e. not re-create the cluster resources)?

How does it look like in the Cluster management? Does the "Physical Disk" resource show the drive or does it show an empty drive selection?

André

[henrikp80]

Hi André
Sorry for late response.

I can see the disk in diskmanager but it never comes online. I can´t see the disk in Explorer.

In diskmanagement I can go on porperties, but there everything looks fine.

All data from original SAN has been copied over to a new SAN.

[henrikp80 · Accepted solution]

Hi

Solved this by removing the disk that failed and created a new RDM-disk.

Copied the data external before and just copied it back.