Add Drives to Raid 10

[Muhieddine]

Hello Everyone,

      Since I setup the server, ML350p Gen8, I have installed 16 drives of HP 300GB 10K, 8 for the P420i (integrated) and 8 for the addtional P420 (PCIe). Drives on channels 4 and 8 are hot spare drives on both controllers, and the others (1,2,3,5,6,7) are in Raid 10. Now i am running out of storage so just thought about adding the hot spare ones to the Raid, therefore gaining another 300GB for each controller, so my question is it possible to do it without any downtime (possibly command line) ? I know the normal procedure, reboot into ACU add the drives wait until the build is complete and then expanding the volumes, I can also move the machines to the iSCSI, rebuild the volume with all the drives (through command line) and move the machines back, but both solutions cosume too much downtime. Please note that I have the latest firmwares for all hardware components and I am running latest ESXi from HP.

Regards

[Muhieddine · Accepted solution]

Solved !

Login root to ESXi through SSH, run command to see check your configuartion:

    /opt/hp/hpssacli/bin/hpssacli ctrl all show config

I had the following:

Smart Array P420i in Slot 0 (Embedded)


   Port Name: 1I

   Port Name: 2I

   Internal Drive Cage at Port 1I, Box 1, OK

   Internal Drive Cage at Port 2I, Box 1, OK
   array A (SAS, Unused Space: 0  MB)


      logicaldrive 1 (838.1 GB, RAID 1+0, OK)

      physicaldrive 1I:1:1 (port 1I:box 1:bay 1, SAS, 300 GB, OK)
      physicaldrive 1I:1:2 (port 1I:box 1:bay 2, SAS, 300 GB, OK)
      physicaldrive 1I:1:3 (port 1I:box 1:bay 3, SAS, 300 GB, OK)
      physicaldrive 2I:1:5 (port 2I:box 1:bay 5, SAS, 300 GB, OK)
      physicaldrive 2I:1:6 (port 2I:box 1:bay 6, SAS, 300 GB, OK)
      physicaldrive 2I:1:7 (port 2I:box 1:bay 7, SAS, 300 GB, OK)
      physicaldrive 1I:1:4 (port 1I:box 1:bay 4, SAS, 300 GB, OK, spare)
      physicaldrive 2I:1:8 (port 2I:box 1:bay 8, SAS, 300 GB, OK, spare)

Then run this command to remove the spares from the array allocation:

    /opt/hp/hpssacli/bin/hpssacli ctrl slot=0 array all remove spares=1I:1:4,2I:1:8

The spares should now be unassigned in the controller status ie: first command

Then run this command to add the drives to the array:

    /opt/hp/hpssacli/bin/hpssacli ctrl slot=0 ld 1 add drives=1I:1:4,2I:1:8

Then in the controller status it will show Transforming, ESXi will also display the yellow status, also Transforming, which too about 4 Hrs to finish

Then run this command to resize the logical drive to maximum available

    /opt/hp/hpssacli/bin/hpssacli ctrl slot=0 ld 1 modify size=max forced

Go to vSphere Client, Rescan Storage adapter to check the new expanded volume mine was 1.1TB

Right click on the datastore and increase size just follow the wizard!

I didn't have to turn off any machine, nor reboot the server, just backed up the VMs just in case