DL360 G4: I want to replace disks with bigger ones.

[Robvdb]

Hi,
following situation:
Hardware raid 1 (smart array 6i)
OS = Windows 2003
2 x 36 gig Harddrives

The problem:
I want to replace the 2 disks with 72 gig disks.

Anyone any Idea how to do this, without reinstalling the server?

thanks

[Miika T]

Symantec ghost (or other imaging tool) does the trick. Other (slower) method might be to remove one of the disks and replace the disk with a bigger one and wait for the raid rebuild to finish and swap the remaing smaller drive and replace it with the bigger drive. After rebuild you should be able to expand the capacity of the array and use diskpart to extend the logical volume (in theory). I would go ahead and clone the system to a image, and swap the drives and restore the image.

-Miika

[Colin_29]

If you are content with creating another partition in Windows, the least intrusive way is to remove one of the disks and replace the disk with a bigger one, wait for the raid rebuild to finish and then replace the remaing smaller drive.

You will then be able to create a new partition in Windows disk management.

If you need to extend an existing Windows partition, then I suggest the imaging route described.

Make sure you have a good backup before attempting either of these.

[Samnang]

Using Acronis True Image Backup Server to Image your old logical drive then backup to other storage. after that you can replace as you want.