Upgrading Drives in Array

[Ayman Altounji]

I work for Public School system where we a have 12 or so Compaq servers running Netware and NT 4.0. My question is general one. We have, for a example, a few older 1500 Proliant Servers (running Netware) with 3 4.3 Gig Drives in a stripped set controlled by Compaq Smart Array controllers. What would be the best and most efficient way to upgrade to larger drives? Is it possible to install one, say, 9.1 Gig drive at a time and have the Array rebuild itself one drive at a time, or do the drives need to be of the same size in order for it to rebuild properly? The problem we are having is that 4.3 drives are not readily available and they are failing on us. We want to keep these servers running for the time being. I imagine the alternative would be to reconfigure the array with 3 new larger drives (of the same size of course) and then restore from back up. Any help on this will be appreciated. Thanks Dennis Topo Jr.

[Ayman Altounji]

Most smart2 and later array controllers support the feature called array expansion, which is done just as you describe. One drive at a time with rebuild in between. I'd recommend updating firmware on the array controller and system board before beginning to head off potential problems.