Removing the spare drive from an existing RAID5 array.

[Ayman Altounji]

The senario I am working with is this. I have a 2500 configured with 5 drives setup as RAID5 with one marked as a spare all setup in one logical drive. I would like to make use of this spare drive i.e. I would like to remove it from being used as a spare and create it as a second logical drive using the existing array. Can this be done without me having to recreate the entire array and rebuild the server?

Thanks.

[Ayman Altounji]

Please ignore my previous posting. I did a quick test and the process seems to be straight forward.

Sorry for any inconveniences.

[Ayman Altounji]

For the information of other readers, you can run the array configuration utility and modify the array. Highlight the spare drive and click the ico to remove it from the array as the spare. Then you highlight the drive again and add it to the array. Close this window. Highlight the free space shown under the first logical drive and create a new logical drive. Wait for the array expansion to complete and the free space will be presented to the Operating system.