MSA1000 and new drives: how to?

[Dirk Weltz]

Hello,

we have a MSA1000 with 12 hdds (73 GB). They are organised in 2 arrays: ArrayA with 2 hdds (first 2 drives from the left in the MSA1000, RAID 1+0) and ArrayB with 10 hdds (drive 3 to 12 in the MSA1000, RAID6). In ArrayA there are 3 logical drives (number 1, 3 and 4), in ArrayB there are 1 logical drive (number 2).

Now we want to replace the first hdds with bigger one (146 GB) and add 2 hdds at the end of the MSA1000 (146 GB). All 4 hdds should work together in ArrayA with RAID5. The data from ArrayA could lost.

We tried to power off the MSA1000 and replace the first two hdds and add the last two hdds. After restarting the MSA1000 all arrays are gone. Old hdds in and all is OK.

Then we powered off the MSA1000 and put all drives from ArrayB 2 bays to the left, so that the hdds from ArrayB in bay 1 to 10. No array found.

How could we add the four hdds, so that no data is lost on ArrayB and logical drive 2 is antouched? Should we replace the first drive at powered on MSA1000 and wait, until the drive ist rebuild, then replace the second drive, and after that, add the last to drives. Could we than delete logical drives 1, 3 and 4 and create new ones? After that, is logical drive 2 again logical drive 2?

Best regards.
Dirk

[James Muell]

Look closely at the 2 array configurations to ensure that they contain the physical disks you think. click on an array and click 'physical' at the top to view which disks are in the selected array.

If there are 4 open slots you should add the larger disks to them, configure a 3rd array to take the place of the 1st array, configure a mount point or logical drive and copy all the data from the 1st to the 3rd. This can be done without impacting the hosts or other arrays.
You can then delete the first array.

[Martin Smoral]

or just replace a single disk from your Raid1 Array A with a 146GB disk. let it completely rebuild. then replace the other disk with a 146GB drive and let it completly rebuild. now go to the ACU. you will see some unused space for that array. you have two choices: 1) expand the logical in the acu and then for windows use diskpart to extend the partition and keep the same drive letter or 2) just create a new logical and use windows to create a spanned volume with the new drive in disk management.