upgrading Hard Drive capacity in DL380

[Greg Tompkins]

Hi All-

Is there an easy way (i.e. not having to reinstall the O/S and apps) to upgrade the hard drives to a larger capacity in a RAID configuration?

Thanks,

--GREG--

[kcpant]

hi Greg,
which RAID level you are using? which RAID card is installed? do you want to install new HDDs or replace already used HDDs? based on your inputs, more appropriate solutions can be given.

[Greg Tompkins]

Hi KC-

I want to upgrade all the drives in the system to give me more free drivespace. All the drives are 30GB and I have 3 logical drives (C,D,E), mirrored. Can I just replace one of the drives in the mirror with a larger capacity drive then let it be rebuilt and then the other drive or is it more involved than this? I want to avoid having to reinstall the O/S and applications and not use a utility like ghost. Thanks!

[Nathan Gervais]

You are correct Greg, removing one drive and rebuilding is the only way to upgrade the space with out adding more drives and restoring from backup or re-installing the OS. Just make sure that you dont pull a good drive while the server is on. Also make sure you have the latest Driver and Firmware for your drives / controller and system board.

Cheers

[kcpant]

Hi Greg,

In your reply you have not mentioned the model of the RAID card you have on your server, but , if your drives configured as a RAID 1 ( mirroring), you can try with the following procedure:

1. remove a drive from mirror set, and insert the high capacity drive.
2. let the miror set rebuild to complete on the new drive installed.
3. when new drive mirroring is completed, remove the second 30 GB HDD and insert the second high capacity drive.
4. wait untill miror rebuild on this new high cap. drive gets completed. once it is done, go to your OS' disk administration utility, you will find some unused space on both drives ( probably equal in size). you can make a new mirrored volume on this free space through your OS, or RAID configuration utility.