Change Harddrives for more capacity?

[Ayman Altounji]

hello.

we have a DL380 with a SmartArray 431 using RAID5.
Now all slots are filled with 18 GB-drives as one logical drive (for the raid-adapter, but with a c:-volume of 4 GB, and d: with rest, all NTFS)

now, the space is all used by the users and a database.

Is there a way to put in 36 GB-drives without having to do a complete backup and restore (may be tricky because it is database-server)?

Whats the best practice?

Thanks

[Mark Cloutier]

The best practice is to remove one HDD and then replace it with a 36GB HDD. Please make sure to shut down the server when replacing the HDD. You have to do this for all HDD. Wait until each HDD has been rebuilt. After this run the ARRAY CONFIGURATION UTILITY and extend your existing logical drive. After this has been done you then go to Disk Admin and there you will see your free space. Here you will have to Extend Volume Set.
It is always recommended to make sure you have a good known backup.