Out of Space!

[Shuie Yankelewitz]

Hello!

I currently have a ProLiant DL380 with 6 36.4 GB HD's running off a SmartArray 6400 controller in RAID 5 configuration. One of the drives is configured as a spare. There are two partitions, c:\ for the system and e:\ for data. The problem is that I am out of space on both and need to add some more storage. What's my best option for extending both partitions (some kind of SAS or NAS option) while retaining the RAID and not having to change any drive letters to avoid reconfiguring the whole network, and allowing for this to be seamless?
Sorry if this sounds like a primitive question, but i could really use the help. Thanks!

P.S. This thread has been moved from Disk to ProLiant Servers (ML,DL,SL). -HP Forum Moderator

[e4services]

So let clarify, the 5 drives are configured into a single logical RAID drive? And then partitioned into 2 OS logical drives?

If that is the case, I would split out the OS, specially if it is Windows. Overloading the RAID controller with all Windows Virtual Memory and Temporary reads and writes serves no purpose.

We would suggest a new large SCSI for the OS. If attached to the RAID, use level 0. Backup and restore the OS to that drive, deleting the old OS partition data and join it to the data partition (expanding the partition would take a software function).

[Shuie Yankelewitz]

Just to clarify - do you mean that I should only be using RAID 0 on the operating system? isn't it critical to have everything at least mirrored? Also, the OS partition is only 12 GB's, so that would not free up enough for a long term period given our recent growth pattern. Is there any way for me to add the Spare into the current logical drive as well?
Additionally there are 2 array controllers - a Smart Array 6400 in Slot 1 which is the currently used controller, and a Smart Array 5i which is embedded that is currently not used. I have relatively little experience with SCSI and RAID, although once I am pointed in the right direction I am not afraid to start tinkering. Should I be adding new disks to a specific controller?

Assuming I can create the new OS partition and add in the spare, all is well, however, with only 12GB's extra, i would still need to add to the current data partition. How would i be able to do that?

Thanks so much for you help!

[kris rombauts]

Shuie,

since you have a 6-th disk that is a spare disk, you could always give that one up and migrate the raid5 from 5 disks now to a raid5 with 6 disks. The extra space of approx 36 Gbytes that becomes available can then be used to extend the logical drive on the smartarray (assuming you only have only one logical drive).

Then at the Windows OS level, you can extend the second partition with the new unallocated free space that will be visible in the disk administrator.
This does not fix the C:\ space issue but might allow to move stuff from C:\ to E:\ as far as it's possible.


If you can move the data to some other location temporary, you could then delete the E:\ partition first, extend the C:\ (using diskpart utility offline from a bootable cdrom , recovery console i.e.) and then re-create the E:\ disk and restore data

Other then that, it's reinstall time on larger disks i am afraid.

HTH

Kris

[Shuie Yankelewitz]

Kris,

Thanks, that really helped. My only questions now, without coming across as a complete newbie to server management, how would i go about changing the spare to an actual disk in the array?

Also, assuming I could migrate the new disk in, is there no way to extend the system partition to take some of the added 36GB?

I am attaching a picture of my disk configuration from the disk management console. Please advise.

Thanks again all for your help here.

[kris rombauts · Accepted solution]

Shuie,

in the ACU utility you can do spare management, remove the spare disk first. Then select the array and choose expand on the right side of the screen, you can then add the one free disk. The migration from 5 to 6 disks will take a while. Once finished, select the logical drive and extend it, that only takes a few seconds.
(this is written from memory, so check around in the gui pls or use the help or ACU user manuals on hp.com)

The reason why you cannot use that new free space for the C:\ disk is because extending a partition should be in unallocated space that is next to the existing partition. In your case you have the E:\ disk living there, reason why you have to delete that one first to create unpartitioned space next to the C:\ drive.

The free space that will be available will show up after the E:\ drive , so this is only usable to extend the E:\ drive but you also need the C:\ extended ....


HTH

Kris

[kris rombauts]

see here to extend the partition:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/300415

I've done this succesfully on 64 bit (not 32 bit) Windows by booting of a w2k3 cdrom and using the recovery console and using diskpart command.



extend [size=n][noerr]

Use the extend command to cause the current in-focus volume to be extended into contiguous unallocated space. The unallocated space must follow (it must be of higher sector offset than) the in-focus partition. The intended use of this command is to grow an existing basic data partition into newly created space on an extended hardware Raid logical unit number (LUN).

If the partition had been previously formatted with the NTFS file system, the file system is automatically extended to occupy the larger partition, and data loss does not occur. If the partition had been previously formatted with any file system format other than NTFS, the command is unsuccessful and does not change the partition.

Diskpart blocks the extension of only the current system or boot partition.

[e4services]

As Kris explains here, the OS partition, because to the way it was configured inside the RAID logical drive, in not flexible. This is way rebuilding the RAID with a new drive for the OS is your only way out.
If it was me, I would backup, clear the RAID config and restore everything. Restoring the OS to a large OS drive, moving the Page file and temp file locations to there (currently on E: and being constantly written to the RAID 5) then rebuild the E: with new 73GB drives restoreing that data so you have 60% free space.
You may be able to leave the current configuration in place, but you may have trouble getting the system to boot the correct logical drive. As well as the fact of adding 36GB to the logical will only give you 44GB free 27%. Besides the 36GB drives you hve, have got to be getting near end of life, 5 years.

[Shuie Yankelewitz]

Your answers all seem ideal - i'm working on a very tight budget here, which is why i am looking for the easiest, cheapest way out. One question I have on you, e4, is if my c:\ is part of the same array, isn't it also running in RAID 5? Is it possible to configure 2 logical drives on the same controller with different RAID configs?

Back to what you suggested, is it possible to only replace a few of the drives in the array with 73 GB drives?

Where can I go to read up on this kind of Hardware? I would very much like to learn it, but I can't seem to find any websites or books that begin with the basics?

Thanks again everyone!

[e4services]

Yes, your C: is running in RAID 5.
Yes, you can configure 2 logical drives on the same controller AND they can be of any RAID type and any mix.
Replacing 1 of 5 36GB drives in an array with a larger capacity will cause the controller to truncate the larger one to the size of the 36GB. Once all 36GB are repalced with 73's the added space will become available to be configured or expanded into, but all the drives would have to be replaced to add any space to the array.
You can download the SmartArray user manual if you go to the support pages at HP and look for documentation for the 6400 controller.
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/DocumentIndex.jsp?contentType=SupportManual〈=en&cc=us&docIndexId=179111&taskId=101&prodTypeId=329290&prodSeriesId=1132643