Adding HDD to server DL380 G2

[Aleris]

Hello guys,

I´ve already read in the user guide but I couldnt find an information which I think it is very stupid but here I am: I have some HDDs for the server that I think they have data on it.
I would like to install it on the server but I dont know how to proceed. Is it OK to insert the way it is or do I have to format them?
If it is the second option, how do I format them?

Thanks very much

[wobbe]

What's your goal here, formatting the disks or accessing the data that might be on the disks?

[Aleris]

In truth, I would like to add this HDD to the server to increase space but I dont know if I have to format these disks because they have been used once.

[wobbe]

Is it just the one disk?
Do you want to add this disk(s) as seperate volume or do you want to extend the size of your current volume?

[Aleris]

I want to expand it.
There are currently 6 HDDs of 36,4GB installed and I think one of them has failed or it is under RAID 1 (mirroring) because the disk management shows a total size of 169GB.
I have no idea on how to figure this out.
Is there any way to verify which HDD is not working or what type of RAID it is installed?

[wobbe]

I think you got a raid 5 volume with 6 disks. With raid 5 you loose the capacity of one of the disks so your raw size would be around 180GB. So formatted 169 sounds about right to me. If one of the drives had failed you could see that trough the red status light on the failed disk.
But, the DL380G6 will only fit 6 disks so you can't add any extra disks.

[Aleris]

How can I confirm the RAID?
I know it is using all the slots, but if I have, for example, a larger HDD and want to put in place on some of these disks?

[wobbe]

You can check the raid setting trough ACU. (Array Configuration Utility) If it's not installed you can try a smartstart cdrom or go into the Raid controller bios (press F8 during boot). Smartstart can be downloaded from the HP site but I'm not sure if the latest version will support you DL380G2.
I want to expand your raid set you need to replace all you drives with bigger once and the extend the volume. Could be very time consuming with Raid 5. Backup and restore is probably quicker.

[Aleris]

I´ll take a look into that and reply this post tomorrow!
Thanks very much for your attention