Cloning/backing up a SAS RAID-1 array to a SATA drive

[Goi]

Hi,

How would one go go about cloning a SAS RAID1 array in a blade server to a SATA drive?

First of all, since this is mirroring with no parity data, would it be sufficient to clone a single drive rather than both?

Second, is there such a thing as a USB to SAS enclosure, so that I can pop the SAS drive into one of these, connect it to a regular PC with a SATA drive within, and use Acronis or something to clone?

If this is not possible, is the reverse possible? i.e. installing a SATA drive into a USB enclosure, connect it to the blade server and use Acronis to clone?

Lastly, if I wish to clone this to a SATA RAID1 array, can I clone them individually?

Thanks!

 

[mv2devnull]

SAS and SATA connectors are compatible, are they not?
There are eSATA enclosures too (or "dual", supporting both USB and eSATA).

RAID writes metadata about the array to each disk. That is "outside" the filesystems/partitions.

Metadata of one RAID brand is probably incompatible with other brand. FakeRAIDs are so and so, but pure software RAID is naturally quite flexible.

How to clone does IMO depend on what OS/RAID/filesystems you have on the source and destination.

 

[Vegemeister]

You should sync all the file systems on the array and remount them read-only before doing anything, so as to ensure that you get the image in a consistent state.

Connect the target disk to some other machine a fat pipe to the server, and do this:

root@host~$ ssh root@server "cat /dev/<the_array>" >/dev/<target_disk>

Obviously, the target disk has to be larger than the array. You can pipe through pv if you want a progress bar. If you have remote root login restricted on the server, chmod a+r the array and do it as a regular user. Remember to change the permissions back when you're done.