Proliant ML350G3 Raid5 - adding a disk!

[Gavinm]

We have a Proliant ML350 G3 with 641 Controller.It has one 36Gb C drive then 3 X 72Gb in a RAID5 configuration (approx 140Gb)D'Drive. I want to add another 72Gb to the RAID5 D'Drive to increase the capacity without affecting the data already on the RAID5. Is this possible with the ACU, how long will it take approx and will I need to do anything else with the OS afterwards? Any help would be appreciated.

Gavin

[Marek Nelec]

It is possible to expand your RAID-5 Array using ACU. HP says that the process may take 15 per gigabyte, so it will take some time. If your SA-641 doesn't have battery backed cache it may take even more time. Anyway it's better to do it over weekend, because if you have the expand priority set to high, you will see seriuos performance impact during normal working hours . If you set the expand priority to low, server I/O has more priority, but expansion process will take more time.
When the expansion process is finished, you can assign free space to a new volumes, or extend existing one. It depends on the capabilities of your OS.

[Mauro Rusignuolo]

Hi,

excuse me but ...
what Marek wrote it's correct with only one exception, I think.
after the expansion, I don't believe that "free space will be avilable for another volume... "... or for some other things ...

after the expansion the volume in raid 5 will be 72 GB more ...
and stop.

Bye

[Marek Nelec]

The Jackal, after ARRAY expansion, the process of logical volume extension must be done. OS sees Smart Array logical volume as a physical drive. So after expansion and extension OS will see unpartitioned space on this drive. You can then create new partition using this free space or add this free space to existing partition if the OS has this capability.
Case study for W2K3:
http://h71019.www7.hp.com/ActiveAnswers/downloads/Performance_Exchange%20Server%202003_HP%20Smart%20Array%206402.pdf

[Gavinm]

Thanks for the help so far....the os I'm using is Windows 2003 Std R1. So I think I'm right in thinking,
1. add new disk
2. Use ACU to extend / expand array
3. Use Diskpart to add unallocated space to D volume.
Does this work for a system boot volume? Are there any differences if the the Disk is basic or dynamic?
Thanks

[Igor Karasik]

>>Does this work for a system boot volume?

you cannot expand system volume (drive C:\) with diskpart
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/325590/en-us
(some 3-th party tools can do it, no freeware tools)

>>Are there any differences if the the Disk is basic or dynamic?

I never used dynamic disks (I think there is no any reason to use dynamic disks with Hardware RAID controllers), but I think the proccess will work for dynamic disks as well.



P.S. make sure you have last server firmware before start. Make sure you have good backup as well

[Marek Nelec]

Igor, you cannot to extend the system volume with the OS booted. But if you boot from a CD, using for example ERD Commander, it can be done.

[Gavinm]

Thanks to you all, points were taken onboard and the job has been completed.... successfully - 18hrs of nerves!!

Thanks

[Gavinm]

Job completed with thanks to those offering advise.