smart array p400i capacity expansion after hdd change

[Stefan Pippel]

Hello everybody,

we have a proliant dl360g5 with smart array p400i.
There are six physical drives installed. The first two as RAID 1+0 the last four as RAID 5.

Now we have replaced the old first two drives (72gb) with greater ones (136gb). We have done this one by one, so the logical drive is still useable, but of course only has the old capacity.

How do we could expand/extend this logical drive to the whole new capacity?

regards, Stefan

[JohnWRuffo]

You will need the ACU from, here:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=18964&prodSeriesId=468780&prodNameId=468781&swEnvOID=1005&swLang=8&mode=2&taskId=135&swItem=MTX-031af397203d4a509e8275255c

Here is the ACU user guide, here:

http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c00709035.pdf

Be sure to have a GOOD backup this server and be VERY patient as this takes a long time to do!

[Stefan Pippel]

Okay, thank you.
ACU was already installed, but I haven't found anything concerning extending.

So either the ACU Version is to old (we have 8.35.7.0) or it's just that limitation from Windows Server 2003 that the systempartition could not be extended.

So, what are my options for that? Is there an offline ACU for extending the logical drive? Afterwards, than I could extend the partition with some partitioning tool...

[TTr]

http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/12400_div/12400_div.html

Does the P400i have the BBWC option?

If you don't have the BBWC on the P400i you can not do online logical drive expansion.

[Stefan Pippel]

Yes, BBWC is onboard by default but not with the batterie build-in by default.
And so, this feature seems to be missing.

But making this action online is not needed on this system. At the workinghours this machine could be down for some time.
So, could we proceed this extending offline with ACU and afterwards extend the partition offline too? Or is there no HP tool for offline extending?

[TTr]

What operating system do you have on this server? The OS must be able to see the new logical drive size otherwise you will lose your data.

You can expand the logical drive offline using the ORCA (bios based ACU) or boot from the smartstart cd and run ACU from there.

Note that the logical drive extension takes about 15 minutes per GB so the extension can take long time.

[Stefan Pippel]

Oh, sorry, forgotten the prime!

It's a Windows Server 2003.
I think, if I extend the logical partition with a tool kind of "Partition Magic" it should be working, right?

Best regards, Stefan

[Terry Hutchings]

Partition magic will not see the new space until the controller assigns it to the logical drive. The ACU should give you the option to either extend the current logical drive or create a new one with the additional space that is available.

[Stefan Pippel]

Okay, so if I have extended the logical drive, the extra capacity could be added with partition magic.

We will try and I will post the news, than.
First of all we have tho update some firmware and drivers.

Best regards, Stefan

[TTr]

After you extend the Logical disk you you will have a larger disk in windows but the same partition size as before.

You have to extend the OS partition on that same disk.

I don'r know if partition magic will do it but you can use the diskpart.exe utility which os a microsoft tool to extend the partition.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/325590