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Re: Smart Array 5i +Unassign Hot Spare and Extend Array

 
Jason Lehrhoff
Occasional Advisor

Smart Array 5i +Unassign Hot Spare and Extend Array

I have a RAID 5 array with one hot spare. I am getting low on storage space, so I want to extend. I have one free slot in my cage and want to use my hot spare first.
I upgraded to version 8 of the ACU and started going through the configuration wizard to unassign the spare. When I click the "save" button part of the message that reads "All spare drives assigned to arrays which contain only RAID 0 logical drives will be removed"

My array is RAID 5 so I don't really understand how this will affect my scenario. I would like to unassign and then extend the array by using this 18.2GB drive (and in the near future another 18.2GB drive to fill the drive cage.
4 REPLIES 4
Jason Lehrhoff
Occasional Advisor

Re: Smart Array 5i +Unassign Hot Spare and Extend Array

Well I called HP and they said I can safely go ahead and apply these changes. I was feeling "dangerous" so I did and it worked out. I also extended the array by choosing this new available drive.
it is in the (from what I hear long) process or assigning/building the drive into the array now. I am pretty sure the OS is not going to see the extra storage. I am planning on using a bootable partition manager application to assign the 18.2GB to the C and D partitions in Windows. I will try to write back on how it all went in hopes this will help another soul...
TTr
Honored Contributor

Re: Smart Array 5i +Unassign Hot Spare and Extend Array

I have used the same method with larger arrays. It works like a charm.

The rebuild process may take long time depending on the number/size of disks and how busy the array is, so be patient if it has not finished yet.

You did not mention what the OS is but you are correct, the OS might not see the size increase without some intervention. Most OSes have utilities to dynamically extend the size of a logical drive I hope yours does. HP-UX has vgmodify and windows has diskpart.exe.
Jason Lehrhoff
Occasional Advisor

Re: Smart Array 5i +Unassign Hot Spare and Extend Array

I am using Windows 2003 SP2. It has been about 24 hours and it is still rebuilding....
hmmmm...
TTr
Honored Contributor

Re: Smart Array 5i +Unassign Hot Spare and Extend Array

Don't interrupt anything. It can take this long and even longer. What you can do is change the rebuild priority to a higher number but this might impact the server i/o. The rebuild time is given lower priority than the regular server I/O.

Is there a status on how much has it done so far? It should be in the LUN properties.

Take a look at

http://forums12.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=1224761