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Re: Switching Raid 1 drives with smaller drives? DL385 w SmartArray 6i

 
mac1234
Advisor

Switching Raid 1 drives with smaller drives? DL385 w SmartArray 6i

I have an older DL385 that has a Raid 1+0 mirror configured with 2 -  300GB drives. Windows 2008 R2 is installed and 2 partitions are configured on these drives.   I would like to swap these 2 - 300 gb drives with 2 - 146GB drives as the space is currently wasted.  I know you can go to larger drives, but I have never heard of going to smaller drives - which makes me ask:

 

  1. Is this possible from a hardware (controller) standpoint?
  2. If it is possible on a hardware level, how will the OS react?  I would think the OS would not respond well.  Possible?  Any process recomendations?

Thanks

3 REPLIES 3
Cederberg
Honored Contributor

Re: Switching Raid 1 drives with smaller drives? DL385 w SmartArray 6i

Hi.

 

As you said, never heard of anyone going to smaller drives. And I wouldn't recommend it either as it potentialy could destroy your data.

 

What i belive would happen if you just switched one of the 300 gb drives to a 146 gb drive is that you would get a warning saying that the drive is to small and it won't rebuild.

 

The array on your raid 1+0 is 300 gb so when you trying to use a smaller drive it won't fit. This has nothing to do with how much data is on the disk or the partition sizes.

 

Again I never tried this so this is mostly just educated guesses and I would recommed leaving it as it is.

PDP-Fan
Valued Contributor

Re: Switching Raid 1 drives with smaller drives? DL385 w SmartArray 6i

From the controller side it will not work. You cannot replace a 300GB drive with a 146GB, the array controller will simply refuse to do that.  If you think about it, normally it makes no sense to replace a bigger with a smaller disk because you would lose data. The controller does not care how much of the disk is used or free.

 

I think the only way to solve your problem is to make an image copy to a backup drive (using Acronis or something alike). Then create a new RAID-set with your smaller disks and restore that image. Maybe you will have to adjust the partition size with a tool like Patitionmagic or similar. But I think Acronis can also correct this.

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"If it seems illogical... you just don't have enough information"
mac1234
Advisor

Re: Switching Raid 1 drives with smaller drives? DL385 w SmartArray 6i

I suspected the same, but thought I would inquire.  Thanks for the responses.

 

I think I will try clonzilla and see if that will work.  I'll report back.