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November 3rd, 2025 13:39
ME412 lossless migration from one host to another?
We have a PV ME5012 with a ME412 attached. We're whiteboarding what would happen if the host died. Would the data on the expansion be recoverable? Quick research says "no, the configuration lives on the host and the data on the expansion is lost". However, Dell Support said that it might be possible if all the expansion disks are intact. We might be able to connect the expanion to a new host and then import it as a Foreign Config.
Does anyone have any experience with this type of situtation in a lab or in production?
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Origin3k
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November 3rd, 2025 14:33
Please describe what you mean with a "Host" because the ME5012 whould i not describe as a Host. A Dell PowerEdge Server is a Host.
The Me5012 is a independed external RAID SAN... with a JBOD (ME412) attached. When dealing with such a SAN all konfiguration are laying on the SAN ... rather than on Server side.
The Hosts(when speaking in terms of a Server) can be connected trough SAS, FC or iSCSI. The FC,iSCSI can be conntected trough a Fabric or direct attached as well.
In all cases a Host must be "onboarded" on the SAN and a configuration "Object" is created. With this Object and the existing Volumes(or Groups) a ACL, some kind of rule, will be defined to specify which Host can have access to which phys. Data. There are no file owner or permissions involded. Its more a "physical" thing.
So your assumption and the answer from Dell does only make sense if youre meaning your ME5012 == Host. For sure a ME5 can died.... but it depends if you can "save" at least one of your 2 existing controllers and the disks. Otherwise it depends on how your spread you Data accross both units.
Keep in mind that the ME can support "tiering" as well as spreading a larger volume groups accross disks from more than one chassis you have. IIRC the ADAPT RAID support up to 128 drives.
If this is a valid business risk for you... than the PV ME5 is the wrong solution otherwise check if the Async Replication might work for you. Other Dell Storage System supports Sync. Replication or MetroVolumes(autom. and transparend Failover).
Personal Note:
Since 2008 dealing with Dell Entry and Midrange SAN (PV(MD3, ME4,ME5), EqualLogic, Compellent and todays PowerStore), in total > 100 Units and we never lost a main SAN... yes there was unwanted downtime for minutes and hours. But together with Dell Support we always bring the SAN back and there was never a data loss.
Regards,
Joerg
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November 3rd, 2025 15:38
Yes. For the purpose of this discussion the ME5012 is being regarded as the Host of the ME412 expansion. Host/Base/Parent/etc.
We currently do not have our disk groups spanned across chassis. They are contained within their own hardware.
Similar to a failure scenario, if a base unit (in this case the ME5012) is decommissioned can we migrate the expansion module (ME412) to another base (a ME5024), import the foreign config, and continue with our production lives with minimal downtime?