Upgrade disks array from 4,3 to 9,1 GB

[Ayman Altounji]

We have several servers with 4,3 GB disks installed with the Compaq Smart Array controller. We want to migrate to 9,1 GB disks due to a lack of disk space. Disks are in RAID 5 configuration with latest firmware on the raid controller.
How can we achieve this on a server with live data (backups are made frequently).

Thanks,
Peter

[Ayman Altounji]

Hi Peter, i have the same thing with a customer of mine. They wants to upgrade to 3 x 18GB hd's. What i'm planning to do is simulate a crash and change one hd and let the system build it up and then do the same with the next one..and so on. Then i will use a program called server magic to exstend the c partition. Its 2 partitions, partion C, about 500MB and D partition with the rest.Hopefully that will work. If not, i'm planning on using ARCServe Disaster recovery to rebuild the server from a backup. I'm going to do this job this weekend.........

Preben Heitmann

[Ayman Altounji]

Sorry to cut in. Pubben, was that a 2500 rack mountable server or the regular? Do you have to change the drive cages as well? Do you mind giving us the part numbers? Thanks! Alex

[Ayman Altounji]

In reference to the last post, the ProLiant 2500 has the same drive cage whether it's free-standing or rack-mounted (5x1" hot plug drive cage).

[Ayman Altounji]

He again Peter,
I used 3 I jujitsu 18Gb He's 10K-RPM. They have to be 80 Pins. Oh my god... that was a hard weekend...........
I started with replacing 1 by 1.....Server detected new drive and rebuild it... When all drives where replaced, I checked the Raid con fig. software. The RAID controller had rebuild the new drives as 4,3 GB HD's, and it showed that there where about 14GB free on each drive. I could then make a logical drive with the free space. BUT!!!...because of the way the partitons where made by the guy that had installed the server (C partition was 500Mb, 80 MB free), i had to delete the Raid configuration and rebuild the Raid. Thats when all hell broke lose......Restoring a MS SQL server is not always that easy..... Took me almost 2 days to get the SQL server back online.....

Some good tips when doing upgrades like this.....Do it during a weekend..or another time when the Company can be without the server for a day or 2.....BACKUP..BACKUP..BACKUP!!.. I took 3 extra backups of the server before started to do the upgrades...and I needed all of them when i was doing the restore!!
If you guys have custom buildt software....have some guys ready on the phone for support.
Server is now running very fast... We did some testing after the upgrade. A search in the software that before took 10-15 min, now took only a few sec's!!

Good luck with the upgrade :-)

Preben Heitmann