How to extend logical drive on MSA1000?

[Kris_L]

Hi, I have a MSA1000 with 8 drives in it (146GB). I want to extend a logical drive, so I've purchased another two (same model and size) but I'm not sure what should I do to complete this operation without losing any data. SAN is in use all the time. Could you please advise? This is my first contact with this machine. Thank you in advance.
Kris

[IBaltay]

Hi,
you should expand the respective array by 2 new disks and then you can expand the logical drive of that particular array...

[TTr]

> I want to extend a logical drive

What have you checked so far? The logical drive is part of an array group of disks. Is it all 8 of them? The disk raid is driven by a raid controller and that's where you perform the raid operations. Which raid controller is it?

[Kris_L]

Thank U both for your replies. Please see attached screenshot and let me know what other information you need. I truly appreciate your help. I'm a SQL server developer and I have never done such an operation before. In my understanding I can go ahead and put my new drives in MSA. It will not affect my data or array configuration yet. Is it correct?

[IBaltay]

yes, the array expansion is nondisruptive...
see the following doc:
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c00709035/c00709035.pdf?jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN

abstract:
You can increase the storage space on an array by adding physical drives. However, the added drives
must be of the same type (for example, parallel SCSI or SATA), and they must each have a capacity no
less than that of the existing drives in the array.

If the operating system supports logical drive extension, you can use any unassigned capacity on an
array to enlarge one or more of the logical drives on the array.

[Kris_L]

Yes, I received 2 exactly the same additional drives. According to the HP doc The Expand Array task is listed only if there is an unassigned physical drive on the controller. I know I asked this question in my previous post but can I just put those drives in MSA now or should I run any kind of processes or put MSA in different mode before doing this? Thanks U!

[IBaltay]

yes the physical HDD could be plug to the empty HDD slots. Then wait for their initialisation and then you can expand the array... Thenafter the new space will be free to be use to expand the logical volume in the array...

[Kris_L]

Thank you so much. I'm going to install new drives right now. Something tells me that I will need your help after that :) Thank you again!

[TTr]

take a good backup before starting the array expansion.
1. Run backups
2. insert the new disks
3. Perform array expansion (add the new drives to array A)
4. Perform logical drive expansion

Be patient when the logical drive expansion starts. It can take hours and go into days.

You did not say what you are planning to do with the added apace within the OS, neither what the OS is, but there is another step to add the new space to the OS. You either expand existing volumes (in Linux) or partitions (in windows) or create new ones.

[Kris_L]

TTr,I'm running Windows Server 2003 on this machine. It looks like Array has been extended, because Controller State is not showing any information. Please see the attachment. Also now I can see unused space next to my old logical drive. In my understanding now I can go ahead and extend logical drive. Is it correct? How long it may take? What should I do after this. My goal is to get more space on one of the partitions on existing logical drive. When I'm done with extending logical drive, can I use third party software (Acronis) to extend one of my partitions? Also during the logical drive extending I closed ACU window by mistake. Does it make any difference and affect the entire process? When I opened it back the process was over. Please advise.