Changing Drives in an Array

[Douglas Young]

Here' a quicky I hope...I have a DL380 (Ser#D025DKN1K056)that I need to increase the size of an array on. Here' the scenario; it has an ArrayD that consists of a RAID1 set of two(2) 9.1GB drives. I have two(2) 18.2Gb drives that I would like to use on this array.

Can I just change out one of the 9.1Gb drives and put in place one of the 18.2GB drives, in effect failing the raid set and then allowing it to rebuild itself around a mismatched set of drives. I realize I probably won't have all 18.2 GB available on the second drive. But I was thinking that if it would take a mismatched set of drives I could then replace the other 9.1GB drive, again failing the raid set and then rebuilding it. Once it was done, would I then (having a matched set of 18.2GB drives) be able to extend the drive across the full disk???

[Sunil Jerath]

Hello Douglas,
Unfortunately you would be wasting the space by doing this 'cos array wont recoganize the extra space provided you want to make another logical drive out of the unused space. I have seen some folks doing it in a different way which is: Make a full backup, delete the array and then recreate the array with larger drives, Restore from the backup.
If someone has anyother ideas then I would not know.

Cheers!!

[e4services · Accepted solution]

You are correct in the process, when finished you will have your 9GB pratition and 9GB of unused space. Now you either need a utility or OS that will "Expand" the partition (Windows2000 or ServerMagic) or I have hear of NT "Extending" the partition under the same drive letter.
One note is that if the OS exists in a partition in the 9GB NT has a limitation to the size of it's boot partition.
More details can be obtain from our support.

[gbumann]

i have done this before, I used the Ghost program, as long as dos scsi drivers are on bootup floppy you can ghost to another drive and use all the space you want to use . gbumann

[Douglas Young]

Thanks guys,

It worked fine. I pulled one drive and put in the larger drive. The mirror rebuilt itself on that drive. Once it was done, I pulled the other drive and replaced it with a larger drive. It rebuilt the mirror and I ended up with my original Logical drive size and the additional capacity was shown as free space. So real cool.

The other thing that surprized me was all of this was done on the primary system partition. I have to admit, Compaq's Array Configurator Rocks!!!