topic Re: espansion raid 5 in ProLiant Servers (ML,DL,SL)

espansion raid 5

sergio_91 — Tue, 15 Nov 2005 08:39:30 GMT

Hi,
i've a Proliant Ml350G3 server with 3 disk configured as raid 5, operating system is Windows 2000 server, controller smart array 532.
i have buy another 3 disk. with ACU software i've extend the raid with the new disk. After this operation i've run the espansion process.
If i go to the acu software i see a status messagge of the controller that say: "parity control in process....."
This messagge is still display after some day. i don't know if it's normal, what can i do? can i reboot my system? hove can enlarge partition dimension?

Re: espansion raid 5

Colin_29 — Wed, 16 Nov 2005 06:16:50 GMT

I expect the message that you are getting is something like "Background parity initialization is currently queued or in progress". This is normal. I have seen reports from people who have experienced this process taking over a week. Just leave it until it completes.

Re: espansion raid 5

Steven Clementi — Wed, 16 Nov 2005 09:54:35 GMT

Sergio:

If the message is "Background parity initialization is currently queued or in progress"...

It will not go away until you make an initial write to the logical drive it is running on. This could be anything. if a new Logical drive, then a format should kick the initialization off. If it is an existing logical disk that you extended, then the message shuld be gone by now unless you have not written anything to that disk.

Let us know the exact message if you can. Post a screenshot.

Steven

Re: espansion raid 5

sergio_91 — Wed, 16 Nov 2005 10:12:20 GMT

yes, the message is that!
but, i don't understand what i have to do!
In windows i can see that i have disk 0 with a partition of 67,82GB NTFS (c:) and in the same disk: 101,75 GB not allocated.

What i have to do? i must create a new partition with not allocated space?
and then use some software like partition magic to enlarge disk c:?

Re: espansion raid 5

Colin_29 — Wed, 16 Nov 2005 10:28:53 GMT

It looks like you have carried out the capacity expansion. You now need to extend the logical drive capacity Although it is not exactly matching your issue can I suggest that you read section 7 of this document http://docs.hp.com/en/266328-002/266328-002.pdf where it is explained in detail.

Re: espansion raid 5

Steven Clementi — Wed, 16 Nov 2005 10:39:23 GMT

If you simply want to "extend" your c: drive, you will need some 3rd party utility (similar to Partition Magic, as I think PM does not work with W2k Server)

If you want to get rid of the message in ACU, create a second partition and format it. Afterwards, the message should go away. Then you can use the 3rd party tool to modify your c drive.

Steven

Re: espansion raid 5

sergio_91 — Wed, 16 Nov 2005 10:41:19 GMT

but ACU will automatically change the actual dimension of a partition?

Re: espansion raid 5

Steven Clementi — Wed, 16 Nov 2005 15:45:00 GMT

"If you simply want to "extend" your c: drive, you will need some 3rd party utility (similar to Partition Magic, as I think PM does not work with W2k Server)"

ACU does not know anything about the file system and the partitions on the Logical drives. It only knows Arrays and Logical Drives.

Steven