Can I add bigger drives to raid 5

[Barry bernstein]

I currently have 2 18gb drives in a raid 5. Can I hotswap 72's into the array?

[Steven Clementi · Accepted solution]

Barry:

Yes. Once you replace all the 18's with 72's, you will have the extra space available to create new Logical units or expand existing units.

Swap the first one. Wait for the first to rebuild. Swap the second, etc, etc..

Which Server/Smart Array is this?


Steven

[Mike Bollman_1]

Also, which OS do you have and how are the drives partitioned? If it is windows you will need to use diskpart after the array expansion to extend the volume. However there are some limitations depending on how the drives are carved up.

[Barry bernstein]

I have a 431 array controller and running W2K. The first array is useing raid 1+0 the second array has 6 18gb drives, which I need to swap out to 72's

[Mike Bollman_1]

So on the 2nd array if it is served up as a single drive (say e:\ for example) in Windows then just use diskpart.

Basically follow Stevens recommendation of a one for one swap letting each drive rebuild. Once you have swapped all the drives use ACU to extend the array. Once that is complete use diskpart.exe to extend the volume.

btw...all of this can be done 100% online without downtime, BUT please be sure to get a good full backup.

[Mahesh Kumar Malik]

Hi Barry

I suppose you have 3 18Gbs not 2 , since RAID 5 needs minimum 3 disks. You can replace current disks with bigger capacity drives. Replcae one drive at a time, let RAID build up. Once you have replaced all 3 drives, run ACU to either expand the existing logical disk size or create new logical disks

Regards
Mahesh