topic Re: Expand a raid 1 logical drive in Disk Enclosures

Expand a raid 1 logical drive

Scott Brinker — Mon, 31 Jan 2005 12:56:14 GMT

Does anybody have any procedures for expanding a DL 380 or equivalent with a 5i controller and a Raid 1 raid configuration. I want to move the 2 - 36 gb raid 1 to a 2 - 72 gb raid 1 configuration. Any ideas on how to do this or best practices?

Re: Expand a raid 1 logical drive

Dilbert_2 — Mon, 31 Jan 2005 13:33:48 GMT

Assuming Windows Dynamic disk:-

1. Replace one disk, remirror.
2. Replace second disk, remirror.
3. Run Array Config. Utility and expand array using unused space.
4. Run Win Disk Manager to create partion on unused space.
5. Expand dynamic disk ( - assuming you upgraded from basic to disk to dynamic disk prior to creating first partition!)

Re: Expand a raid 1 logical drive

Helmut Fischer — Tue, 01 Feb 2005 02:39:53 GMT

Follow steps 1-3 as described by dilbert.
If you have basic discs(windows assumed),you can also use Acronis DiscDirector to manipulate any partition sizes afterwards. (Also works for many other OSs)
Best regards
Helmut

Re: Expand a raid 1 logical drive

Scott Brinker — Tue, 01 Feb 2005 12:14:41 GMT

We are using dynamic disk. So once the remirror has been complete from both disks I would need to run Disk Manager and create a partition with unused space. Do I need to expand the disk using disk manager or using array configuration utility?

Re: Expand a raid 1 logical drive

Guy Salernitano — Tue, 19 Apr 2005 17:33:56 GMT

guys,
follow up on the original question and the ref. to Acronis. I am trying to do almost the reverse of this ie. move from a mirrored pair of 36Gb disks to a pair of smaller 18 GB disks. On the 5i I cannot see any options to shrink the logical drive (assuming I used something at the OS level first to shrink partitions first).
I tried creating a second array and logical drive out of the 2 18Gb disks and then using acronis to copy and shrink the partitions to it. This seemed to work OK and the paartitions certainly looked ok ie. main partition was marked active and seemed to have system files on it.
I then removed the 36Gb disks and tried to reboot - no joy, the DL380 only wanted to boot off the first logical drive (even though it's disks werent there! )
Next tried deleting the logical drive for the 36GB ones - got a bit further in as much as it looked like it tried to boot from the copy but just hangs after the booting from C; drive message. I've used ACronis for this kind of thing with IDE drives before with no probs though have never tried it with logical drives.
Anyone done this successfully before or suggest a better way of migrating without me having to reinstall???
ta, much