HP Smart Array P420i RAID 5 HDD and Volume Expansion

[Borene]

Hello,
I have at one of my customers a HP Proliant ML310e Gen 8 with a HP Smart Array P420i  2gb Cache configured with RAID 5,   3 x 1TB Hard Drives.  this server has a 5 Drives bay.
Their systems database is growing in size at a really fast pace, and soon I'll have to replace the drives, My question is: What is the easiest path to replace the hard drive and how do I go about it and configuring? 

I've read on some forums people saying just replace one drive at a time, let it resync, then once all the drives are replaced, then increase the volume size,.  is this something that can be done on the P420i? 

Thank for the help and advice.

[Jimmy Vance]

You have a couple of options, you can easily add two more 1TB drives and expand the current RAID 5. If you want to replace the existing array with larger drives, you will need to replace each disk one at a time waiting for the array to recover between each disk swap. Once the drives are all replaced and the array is healthy you can then expand the array to include the additional space. Then you have to modify the OS to utilize the new space..

What you have to consider is what is faster, the above scenario, or rebuilding from scratch and restoring the data from backup.

Regardless of methd make sure you have a verified backup before you start making changes to the array

[Borene]

Thanks for your reply Jimmy,
If i choose to replace one drive at a time, let it rebuild, then, to expand the volume I'll do it under the HP Smart Arryay configuration right?  Will a option to expand the volume be available then? because I was browsing through the SmartArray GUI i could not find any related option, unless this option becomes available once it sees that the drives are bigger than volume. is that the case?

thank you

[Jimmy Vance]

It's been some time since I've looked at doing this. From what I recall, once you have swapped out all the drives when you view the logical drive there will be unused space listed and an option to extend/expand the logical drive.