MSA Raid 5 disk expansion

[Jenny2012]

I recently purchased a 300G SAS 15K drive to add to my raid 5 MSA60 storage array to increase the storage space and was told it is a dual port drive and I didn't need to reformat my raid 5 array, how to I check if my other 3 drives are single or dual port.

I also tried expanding the array and after the transformation was completed at 100 percents nothing happened, restarted the server but not the storage array and still the same, was told I need to do some command to activated it in windows since the transformation is ready as I was using the HP storage array utils in windows to this. Do I need to change it to dynamic disc since it is simple disc.

[Prakash Singh_1 · Accepted solution]

You can check drive type using the SMH, ACU or ADU.

Now that you have expanded your array, you have added the new disk to the array, and your excisting Logical Drive has been destributed over 4 disks.
Now you have got some empty, unused space on your array.
You can Extend your excisting LUN or can create new LUN(s)

If you extend the LUN, windows will see it as a lager disk, and you will need to extend partition, or you can create a new parttion.

If you create new LUN(s), windows will see it as new disk(s),but windows will not see any difference, where you are now

Regards,

Prakash

[Jenny2012]

I do not see extra disk drive in the disk management in windows; I can only see it in the storage ACU showing 1 drive with unused space 300G. My 3 SAS raid 5 drive is a Basic disc in windows disk management, what do I do now?

Create a logical drive using the ACU? And then see if I can use the Windows disc management in windows to extend it?

If not do I create a logical drive in Acu and try the extend again using the array utils?

Or do I convert the Basic disc to dynamic from disc management in windows and then use the acu to create a logical drive and then go back to disk management in windows and see if I can extend it since it is now dynamic disc?

Or once I convert it to dynamic disc in windows I do all this in the array utils?

[Prakash Singh_1]

This depends on what you do whether you want a larger disk or an additional disk?

If you want a larger disk. Then you select the Logical drive, and extend it.
From the ACU.

If you want an addtional disk, then you create a new logical drive using the ACU.

Untill you do one of the aboave, windows will see no change.

When you have got a RAID controller, windows do not see the physical disks.
Windows see the logical disks.

[Jenny2012]

I see in ACU that I can extend the logicial drive, my existing size is 558.731GB and it says Max I can change it is 838.095GB, my unused space on the new drive shows 372.5GB, does that mean I only get 279GB out of my 372.5gb extra HD? if I extend it is my existing data still ok, do I have to do anything in windows after that?

[Prakash Singh_1]

Well, without seeing it myself. It's hard to give you a very good explanation.

Your current RAID 5 is 558 GB, using 33 drives.
That means your data is 279Gb + 279GB = 558GB.
Which means whenever you add a disk, min 279 Gb or larger you can extend your logical drive to 279GB. And in the remaining space, you can create a new logical drive.

Here is an example:

Lets say:
You have got 1 x 100 GB disk and 2 x 150 GB disk.
You want to use this for a RAID 5.
Then you can create a RAID 5 of 200 GB.
100 GB + 100 GB of data + 100 GB of parity.
The smallest disk decides the size of your RAID
In this theory, you use 100 GB on all 3 disks. Leaving you with 2 x 50 GB unused space. You can use that for a 50 GB RAID 1 or 100 GB RAID 0.

In you case, You are for some reason limitted to 279 GB per disk.


In windows If you extend the logical drive.Windows will see it as a larger disk.
You can extend your partition, which can be a challenge, on the boot/system partition.
I will not be of much help on that part. Or would suggest you to create a new partition.

[Jenny2012]

The spare drives I have is 300Gb, so I suppose you are right as this will only give me about 279Gb of extra storage space added, I am not sure why my ACU is showing 379Gb of unused space, but when I go to the extend logicial drive it gives me 839gb Max I can extend it to. I will try to extend the array in ACU once I have backed up my data.

Do I need to convert my drive from Basic to dynamic first in the Windows disk management before I extend the logicial drive in ACU?

The drive has share data on it and no OS is installed with it.

[Prakash Singh_1]

You don't need to convert.Since it's a data drive, you should have no problem extending it.

You can extend the logical drive rescan device manager then check you have got a bigger drive in diskmanage

open a command window

run diskpart.

This should help you for the disk part.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/325590

[Jenny2012]

If the raid controller doesnt do it, then I will try the diskpart afterwards, is it only done using command line with windows? no GUI.

[Prakash Singh_1]

This is a 4 step task.

1. Physically hot install the disk.
2. Add new disk to array, using ACU
(expand array)
3. Extend logical drive using ACU.
4. Extend windows partion using diskpart