Add capacity to C: in RAID 5 array w/two logical drives

[John Rentschler]

Hello,
I have a very old HP NetServer TC 4100 with a NetRAID-1M controller. NetRAID Assistant (vB.02.03) shows two Arrays, 0 & 1, each has 3x18GB drives and there is also one 18GB HotSpare and one 18GB drive that was a HotSpare but is now Ready. My goal is to increase the capacity of C:, which is running Windows SBS 2000, is on Array 0, and is down to approx 130MB free of it's current 8048MB capacity. I know Windows doesn't natively let me increase C:, but there are 3rd party apps that will. I also understand that, because C: is in an array with another logical drive (D:), I can't use the Add Capacity function of NetRAID Assistnant. Finally, I can't do anything that would cause loss of data. Rebooting the server isn't a problem, I can do it overnight, but no loss of data and no reinstalling the OS.
So, having said all of that, can anyone give me any suggestions? Anything would be helpful.

Thanks!
JR

[kris rombauts]

Hi John,


if i understand correctly, you have two separate arrays, each made out of 3 disks.
The importent thing when one wants to expand array capacity is to know how many logical drives are created in the array at the hardware level. You mentioned a c: and a d: disk, but those are partitions at the OS level, so if the c: and d: partitions have a total size of 36 GB then you only have one logical drive in the array 0 and that is good. If you only have one logical drive in array 0 (and array 1) then you can add the Ready drive to array 0 to increase the size, use the right mouse button to add the disk to the array (add capacity).

Once this is done, then you need to work at the OS level since the previous steps are only changes at the H/W config level and the OS is not aware.
You will see in Windows disk manager that the disk0 (which corresponds to array 0) will have some unused space at the end after the array capacity has been expanded.
Windows does not allow to extend the boot drive c: as you already know, so now it's time to look into some 3th party tools that do this like partition magic ?
It might be that you need to backup/delete/restore the d: partition because increasing a partition might require free space at the end of the c: disk first but you need to check the partition tools for the requirements.

What you can do is move your Windows page file from the c:\ to the d:\ drive, this way you likely win a couple of hundred MBytes or a few GBytes,(depends on the RAM size in this server) without changing anyhting at the h/w level, this is if your D: disk has enough free space. If not, then you can always extend the second array and extend that partition (e:\ ?), which is possible because it is not the boot disk.



You can now also assign the hotspare drive to be a global hotspare, this way it can serve both array 0 and 1 in case a disk drive goes bad because it seems you had 2 hotspare disks before.

If the array0 has more then one logical drive defined at the H/W level, it cannot be expanded. Array expansion is only possible with arrays that are not divided into more then one logical drives at the hardware config level, this is a limitation that not only the Netraid faces, other PCI based raid controller cards in the industry also have this limitation.

Pls confirm the partition layout, because i assume here that the array 0 = c:\ and d:\ and are 36 GB in size (3*18 GB in raid5 = 36 GB usable capacity).


HTH

Kris

[John Rentschler]

Hi Kris,

Unfortunately, C: and D: aren't just separate partitions, they're separate logical drives on the array. I moved the pagefile a long time ago, so that's out. As far as increasing D: goes, I could do that, but the problem is that C: is running out of space, at least partially, due to my antivirus software. I'm trying to avoid having to remove and reinstall that at all costs, but it looks like I might have to.
Is there any way at all that you can think of to increase the capacity of C:? Third-party apps or anything?

Thank you very much for your help!

JR

[kris rombauts]

John,

if you have really two logical drives configured at the hardware level in the A0 array then you cannot expand the array A0, this is a limitation most PCI raid cards have.

What is the size of the two logical drives in the array 0 then ? do you really have a LD0 of 8 GB ?


How about uninstalling the AV software and reinstall it in a path like D:\Program Files\ ... or even E:\Program Files maybe. If the s/w allows that then this could save quit some space because the virus definition file/dbase would likely move to D:\ or E:\ also.

Besides that, i guess third party partitioning tools is the only method left, i don't have enough experience with them really to advise here.


So you have a second array A1 then which is also build from 3*18 GB drives, i though that would have been your D: drive from the initial information posted and that the A0 was partitioned at the OS level.


Kris