increasing space on a RAID 5

[Carlo Barsotti]

Space issue I have a question aboutincreasing space on my Pro liant DL380 server. I have 4 146.8GB (10K) hard drives in a raid 5, with 1 spare. I am running out of space on both the system Partition 20gb and the data partition, 360GB. I'd like to know if purchasing 5 larger hard drives and installing 1 at a
time, letting the system rebuild the raid would then afford me the ability to increase the total size of the data partition.
Also, any tools to increase system partition size without wiping out the drive. Thanks.

[Harry Lubansky]

Depending on your RAID management software, you might be able to convert your spare drive into an additional drive that can be added to the RAID5 and will rebuild ok. The 5 larger HD idea will only work if you make a brand new RAID 5 and set it up to be the startup partition. There are partition utilities like Partition Magic that can extend partitions pretty nicely, but you have to read the details on how that works with a RAID 5.

[ITTAXVN]

You can use card RAID6i to configure RAID5 for 5 hard drives.

[Carlo Barsotti]

Thanks guys. I will look into 6i and the spare drive which would be convenient and cost effective. I guess until they give me some more budget for a new server that will have to do.