adding disks to RAID 5 array

[Wing Yau]

One of our fileservers is near full capacity and has 2 RAID 5 arrays of 5(9.1Gb) disks each.
As my role is desktop support, i do not have any server experience and have asked another engineer to advise how to upgrade the servers diskspace. He has ordered 2 x 72Gb disks but hasnt told me of what to do with them.
How can i use these disks to increase the diskspace without losing any of the data on the existing disks? (its a Smart array 3200 controller, by the way)
any advice would be appreciated!

[Hoang Chi Cong_1]

Hi.
You just insert the new disk to the array.
The controller will automatic rebuild.
After that you can using Command view sdm to extend file system.
Regard,

Jim

[Wing Yau]

to insert the new disks i would have to replace 2 of the 9.1Gb disks(1 at a time,judging by some info from the other threads).
wont this just rebuild them as 9.1Gb drives again?

[Greg Carlson]

Wing,

With the smart array 3200, adding the 72gb hdds to a raid 5 w/ 9gb hdds will only use 9gb of the 72gb. You would be best to create a raid 1 and migrate the data over from your raid 5 with only 36gb of space to your raid 1 with 72gb. Then you could purchase additional 72gb hdds as needed and migrate from raid 1 to raid 5 later on.

Ciao,
Greg

[Wing Yau]

sounds like a plan...
better get some reading done on this,
thanks Greg!

[Greg Carlson]

Wing,

I just noticed you have 2 raid 5 arrays of 5x9gb arrays (72gb total) How many empty slots do you have for those 72gb hdds total? What you may want to do once you move your data over to the 72gb hdds would be to delete one array to make room for two to three more 72gb hdds.. Any left over 9gb hdds in the system can be added to your existing 5x9 array and extended.

Hope this makes sense,
Greg

[Wing Yau]

Dont have any spare slots im afraid,
both arrays full. is this gonna be a problem?

[Greg Carlson]

Wing,

This is definately a problem. You won't be able to do what I had mentioned as that would have required two free slots. Your only options would be to move the data off Array B, delete the array and replace two hdds with the 72gb hdds. If you aren't planning on adding any more 72gb hdds, then you could leave the remaining 3x9gb hdds and expand your Array A by 27gb. You'll need to restore your data from Array B.

Ciao,
Greg

[Wing Yau]

cheers mate
now ive got to see how much downtime i can get!

[e4services]

Nobody mentioned that you could simply request 3 MORE 73GB drives to replace all of the 9GB. ANd as stated before, replace each drive, online, one at a time, allowing the system to rebuild between each replacement.

And at this point in the life of the system, it might not be a bad maintenance action, they have got to be getting old enough to start failing anyway.

[Greg Carlson]

E4, just having him fail out the 9gb with 72gb hdds doesn't help him as he would only have 9gb of usable space available out of 72gb doing that method.