Raid 5-Change harddisks

[Flare]

Hi there,

one or two questions.
Our Array 5 with 4 Disks is running out of Space. Can i change the first disk to a larger ?? And after the rebuild of the first disk, can i change the second and so on???
If this done with all the disks, can i add the new space to the array ?

Its an DL380G4 with smartarray 6i controller.

Rene

[gregersenj]

Yes.

Before you begin.
Study the procedure.
Ensure that your oprating system support, that the disk grow.
Windows 2000 from SP4 (or SP3) support it.
Window 2003 and 2008 also support it.
Beware. Windows do not support, the system/boot partition to be extended.
If you need to extend the system partition, you will need one of these windows boot disks. Then you can extend the system partition off-line.
Other partitions you can extend online.

Ensure that you got a good backup and emergency recover plan (just in case)
Ensure, that all disk are healthy.
Use the SMH, check physical disks.
They must be error free.
If only 1 have errors, you can replace that 1 first.
Also check, that the correct ID is assignes to the disks. ID must be the same as the bay number. Use SMH or ACU

replace disk 1 by 1
Let them complete rebuild between.

Open ACU
Select the logical drive that you want to extend.
Select extend
Click save.

When it has completet.
In windows
Open device manager.
Do a rescan.
Open disk manager.
Check tht you now got unused space on the disk that has been extended.
From the command prompt
Run diskpart

Could be a good idea to make a screen shot from disk manager, before doing the extension. So you can see the difference.


Also
You can add more disks to the array in the same manner.
Put in more disks
Open acu
select the array that you want to cahnge
select expand (to add disks)
Selet extent to add the extra capacity.
save
wait for expansion and extension to complete.
Then extend in windows.

BR
/jag

[gregersenj]

ACU (Array Configuration Utility):
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c00729544/c00729544.pdf

SMH (System Management Homepage)
https://localhost:2381

Diskpart:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/325590

Good luck
/jag

[wobbe]

If you use windows and run with a basic disk configuration you can only extend the last partition. Dynamic disks are.... a bit more dynamic. Offline you could look into using a live cd like parted magic to rearrange you partitions.
And please do make a good backup!

[MAH_2]

HI Please make sure u have BBWC .
Expansion and exetntion will support , if u have BBWC.

[gregersenj]

BBWC is not needed on the old parallel SCSI Smart Arrays.

BR
/jag

[Flare]

Ok thank you for help. The Harddisk are 15k at the moment. is it ok when i replace the harddisks with 10k 300GB drives one by one ?

Rene

[gregersenj]

Yes

You can mix speeds and protocol and size.

Ultra 2, 3 and 320 will run on the same bus.
They will run at they native speed. But no faster than the controller.

10K / 15 KRPM. No problem. the 10K will perform slower (When they got the same data densety).

Size:
You can put in lager drives.

BR
/jag

[Flare]

Ah ok..
i found some harddisks that will work i guess.
HP 300GB U320 15K Universal HDD 411089-B22
HP 146GB U320 15K Universal HDD 347708-B22

at the moment the raid 5 contains 4 harddrives with 72gb.

think i will change to 4x300 gb harddisks.
can you have a look on it that the drives are the right one ??
thx for help

[gregersenj]

Yes.

These drives is supportet.

BR
/jag