HP Proliant ML350 G5

[vladimire]

We have a HP Proliant ML350 G5, configured with 2 Raid arrays: one mirrored (system drive); and one in Raid 5 using three 750GB HDDs plus a one more 750GB drive as spare (four in total).

I would like to increase the capacity of the Raid 5 array by replacing the drives with larger capacity drives in a non-data-destructive manner. 

Does anybody know what is the maximum supported HDD size of the E200i controller?

Is the procedure as simple as replacing the drives one at a time with a larger one and waiting for the rebuild before I replace another, or is there another procedure I have to follow in order to keep the existing data?

Any help would be greatly appreciated... Thank you!

[Todd_Porter]

I use these servers all the time for SCO Unix installs so I am familiar with the HARDWARE. There theoretically should not be a maximum hd size limit from the hardware size. The only limit I would think would be from the OS itself, and seeing as this is just a data drive, not bootable, it can go over the 2TB boot limit. What is the OS you are using? 

[vladimire]

Todd,

Thank you for taking the time to reply. I am running Windows 2003 Server R2.

I believe 2 tb drives should be sufficient for our needs for the moment.

[Todd_Porter]

os that means a 6TB drive in R5? That should work fine but I dont believe you can just replace one at a time. It work rebuild fine but after all drive are switched out, it would tsill appear as 750GB partitions on each drive. Probably the easiest way is to purchase all 4 2TB drives, backup the entire raid 5 to one of the single 2TB drives. Replace the raid 5 completely with 3 of the the 2TB drives, restore the files, then go in and add the last 2tb drive as a hot spare.

I would not believe upgrading 1 disk at a time is possible but the guy in this forum say it worked on an HP server for him:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/247109-32-raid-upgrade-bigger-disks

[Todd_Porter]

OK, I found the manual:
http://bizsupport1.austin.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c00688683/c00688683.pdf

Look at page 27, for a hardware raid 5 it is possible after all disks have been swapped to expand the raid array in the firmware. I assume iwndows will still see the 750GB partition on boot and you would have to expand the partition in the disk management as well after boot

[vladimire]

I was looking at this document: http://bizsupport2.austin.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c00688683/c00688683.pdf

On page 27:

" Upgrading hard drive capacity

You can increase the storage capacity on a system even if there are no available drive bays by swapping
drives one at a time for higher capacity drives. This method is viable as long as a fault-tolerance method
is running.

To upgrade hard drive capacity:
1. Back up all data.
2. Replace any drive. The data on the new drive is re-created from redundant information on the
remaining drives.

CAUTION: Do not replace any other drive until data rebuild on this drive is complete.
When data rebuild on the new drive is complete, the Online/Activity LED stops flashing steadily and
either flashes irregularly or glows steadily.

3. Repeat the previous step for the other drives in the array, one at a time.
When you have replaced all drives, you can use the extra capacity to either create new logical drives or
extend existing logical drives. For more information about these procedures, refer to the HP Array
Configuration Utility User Guide."

[Todd_Porter]

This will NOT work! DO  not buy those hard drives! See this post:

http://h30499.www3.hp.com/t5/Disk-Disk-Arrays-Legacy/Smart-Array-E200-amp-2-TB-Seagate-won-t-work/td-p/2358595

[Trygve Henriksen]

As Todd mentions, the controller may only support 1TB drives.

Also, to do the expansion afterwards, you MUST have BBWC(Battery Backed Write Cache) or the config tools won't let you do the job. (This is to avoid data corruption if there's a power loss during the operation)

Pulling single drives and replacing them with larger drives will take quite a while, and your system will be in a vulnerable state during this, so consider changing the 'Rebuild priority' to highest possible before starting.

(I think that cut the time down to about 1Hour/Drive when I swapped out 250GB SATA drives in old ML110 G5 servers last year)