Extending a HP410i RAID 5

[TomasCrespo]

HI! I have a HP ProLiant ML350 G6 with a HP410i (256MB with battery) and Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard.

Now it has 6 Dual Port 10K SAS 146GB (507283-001) which creates one volume of 683,5GB (C:\) into a RAID 5. I have two more free hard disks slots.

Now we are running out of space, so I'm thinking on enlarge my volume, but I don't know what could be the best option, I dont know if I should change some disk or if I should only add two new larger disks.

What do you advise me?

Thanks

[viniciof]

Hello,

You can add 2 more drives to the raid then expand and extend the logical volume, after that be sure to also extend the it in the OS so it could "see" the new size.  It can be done with Windows Disk manager .

Otherwise, you can replace all 6 HDD's with bigger size drives (one by one and let it rebuilt the data each time a HDD is been replaced).  And follow the same expansion and extension process to ingresses the storage size.

So, if you or you business will be growing more in the near future and more data storage capabilities will be needed I'll recommend you to replace all drives with bigger drives.  Or just add two more drives but, it will increases the size only in aprox. 280GB more so you could be running out of space again in a few months.

[TomasCrespo]

So... I can't add two new larger hard drives to the same array, isn't it?

If I want to add only two new larger hard drives I need to create a new array and, of course, it can't be a RAID 5 because they are only 2 drives.

Is there any way to replace the drives with larger ones little by little and increase the available free space before replace the 6 drives??

Some other option?

Thank for your answer!

[viniciof · Accepted solution]

Hello,

 You can add two larger drives to the same array but it will shows just 146GB (the same as all the drives in the same array).  

You can create a RAID 1 with two more drives or you can add those 2 more drives to the same RAID 5 you already have created (expand to a raid 5 with 6 HDDs to 8 drives). 

-So, if you want to add 2 larger drives the best you can do is create a new array with a Raid1 (for redundancy).

Or

-Buy 2 new drives, same size as the older ones and add them (expand the array) to the array already created (this will increasee in 272GB aprox. the total space)

Or

-Replace all 6 HDD's, one by one with larger drives.  Then extent the array.  Remenber that the MBR boot disk can not be greater than 2TB.

It's not possible to increase the size just adding larger drives to the same array (little by little) because if you have just 1 with 146GB, all of them will be taken as the same size.

[Jan Soska]

There is one possibility to extend your current drive. You can create new array with biggest drive available to your server as raid1 and then create software raid in your OS, transfering current disk c: to spanned dynamic disk together with new array.

But, this is not something extra recomended, just as one possibility.

Jan

[TomasCrespo]

I'm thinkg on add 2 new disks of 1TB to the RAID 5. Of course I only win 146GB with each one of them, but this let me changing the others 6 disks little by little to new 1TB disks. Is this correct?

I know the MBR limitation of 2TB. How can I migrate my RAID 5 (with WS2008 R2) to GPT to rid off this limitation?

I have found all this disks:

HP 652564-TV1 - 300GB 6G SAS 10K 2.5IN SFF HPL ENT 3YR GEN8 TOPVALUE

HP 652564-B21 - 300GB 6G SAS 10K 2.5IN SC ENT HDD

HP 652572-B21  - HP 450GB 6G SAS 10K 2.5IN SFF HPL ENT 3YR GEN8

HP 652583-B21 -  600GB 6G SAS 10K 2.5IN SC ENT HDD

HP 581286-B21 -  600GB 6G SAS 10K 2.5IN DP ENT HDD

HP 619291-B21 -  900GB 6G SAS 10K 2.5IN DP ENT HDD

HP 697574-B21 - 1.2TB 6G SAS 10K 2.5IN SFF HPL ENT 3Y GEN8

All are valid for my HP Proliant ML350 G6???

What about the codes TV1, SC, DP, ENT...?? What are the differences??

Extremely grateful

[viniciof]

Hi,

I'm thinkg on add 2 new disks of 1TB to the RAID 5. Of course I only win 146GB with each one of them, but this let me changing the others 6 disks little by little to new 1TB disks. Is this correct?  Yes, but you cannot be able to expand the arrya or use the new space untill all drives are 1TB.

I know the MBR limitation of 2TB. How can I migrate my RAID 5 (with WS2008 R2) to GPT to rid off this limitation?  It's not possible for the boot disk.  You can do it for a second Logical Volume if you have setup 2 LV before windows installation so the second will shows as a separate Logical drive.

I have found all this disks:

....

All are valid for my HP Proliant ML350 G6???  No, some of those are exclusive for Gen8 Servers.

What about the codes TV1, SC, DP, ENT...?? What are the differences??

TV1, B21 = It's just part of the product ID.

SC = Smart Carrier Drive (for Gen8 servers)

DP = Dual Port

ENT = Enterprise

Supported drives for this server could be found here:

http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/13241_div/13241_div.HTML#Storage

Those are some drives you can use in that server with that array controller (p410)

HP 900GB 6G SAS 10K rpm SFF (2.5-inch) Dual Port Enterprise 3yr Warranty Hard Drive 619291-B21
HP 600GB 6G SAS 10K rpm SFF (2.5-inch) Dual Port Enterprise 3yr Warranty Hard Drive 581286-B21
HP 450GB 6G SAS 10K rpm SFF (2.5-inch) Dual Port Enterprise 3yr Warranty Hard Drive 581284-B21
HP 300GB 6G SAS 15K rpm SFF (2.5-inch) Hot Plug Enterprise 3 yr Warranty Hard Drive 627117-B21 
HP 300GB 6G SAS 10K rpm SFF (2.5-inch) Dual Port Enterprise 3yr Warranty Hard Drive 507127-B21
HP 146GB 6G SAS 15K rpm SFF (2.5-inch) Dual Port Enterprise 3yr Warranty Hard Drive 512547-B21
Hot-Plug 1TB 6G 7.2K rpm, 2.5" SFF Dual-Port SAS hard drive   605835-B21 

[epretorious]

These guides might be useful:

http://www.tricksguide.com/how-to-migrate-raid-on-your-hp-server.html
http://www.tricksguide.com/how-to-expand-array-extend-logical-drive-raid-hp-acu.html

HTH,