Disk Enclosures
1748181 Members
3923 Online
108759 Solutions
New Discussion юеВ

Expanding a partition

 
CraigT_1
Advisor

Expanding a partition

I am currently running with the following disk arrays on a DL380 G3 :
Array1 - RAID 1 - 2 x 35GB - C: Windows
Array2 - RAID 5 - 4 x 146GB - D: Data
there are no spare slots for disks.

I want to increase the Array2 - RAID 5 by replacing all 4 disks with 300GB. Is there anyway of replacing these disks by pulling one 146GB drive out at a time inserting a 300GB disk, letting the array rebuild and moving onto the next disk until all 4 disks are replaced.

At the end I will be left with approx 154GB free space on each disk. Can I some how merge this into the existing array, or do I have to rebuild the array from scratch, as I need the partition(D:) one size and not creating an extra partition(E:)?

Obviously if I can then I am familiar with using DISKPART under Windows 2003.


Any help would be appreciated.
10 REPLIES 10
TTr
Honored Contributor

Re: Expanding a partition

> anyway of replacing these disks by pulling one 146GB drive out at a time inserting a 300GB disk

That is a feature of some array hardware. You did not mention what it is but some arrays can do this very easily.

> Can I some how merge this into the existing array

This is another feature of some array hardware...

> partition(D:) one size
First you increase the size of the existing array if possible and then you increase the partition size using DISKPART.EXE
CraigT_1
Advisor

Re: Expanding a partition

I have a Smart Array 5i Controller with the following additional info:
Hardware Revision B
Firmware Version 2.36
Array Configuration Utility 7.60.18.0

Do you know if I can do this or have to upgrade?

Cheers Craig
Hein van den Heuvel
Honored Contributor

Re: Expanding a partition

Yes, the Smart Array 5i supports this.

http://www.icare.hp.com.cn/TechCenter_StaticArticle/8583/11182.pdf

Appendix C page 15
"Disk Drive Capacity Upgrades"

"Additional storage space may be obtained with the same number of physical drives in a fault-tolerant configuration by replacing these drives with others of higher capacity. By replacing the drives one at a time, the data on the new drive is re-created from redundant information on the remaining drives. After each new drive has been rebuilt, the next can be replaced. After all drives have been replaced and rebuilt, the additional capacity on each drive can be used by adding a new logical drive. The ACU recognizes the unused space (with RAID 1, 0+1, and 5) and guides you through the configuration procedures."

Hope this helps some,
Hein van den Heuvel (at gmail dot com)
HvdH Performance Consulting
CraigT_1
Advisor

Re: Expanding a partition

Hi,
Thanks for the post. Although this Raid controller supports what I want to do. I don't want to create a new logical drive, I want to expand the existing. Is there an option to do this when I have replaced the disks?

Hein van den Heuvel
Honored Contributor

Re: Expanding a partition


Extending logical drives is certainly supported through the ACU.

See "Extend logical drive" on page 35 in:

http://bizsupport.austin.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c00729544/c00729544.pdf

It mentions how not all O.S.es support extending, but best I know Windows does. You may need to have "maxboot" enabled: "It also enables you to create a larger logical drive or increase the logical drive size (extend it) at a later time."

hth,
Hein.
TTr
Honored Contributor

Re: Expanding a partition

There are 3 steps involved here and they are the ones that I outlined in my first reply.

1. Replace the disks and have the space made available to the array

2. Expand the existing LUN(s) to use the new space.

3. Expand the partition size on the OS.

Hein confirmed that your array is capable of doing the first 2 and correctly hinted that windows is capable of #3. But you will definitely need the diskpat.exe utility to do #3 and may need the maxboot enabled as Hein suggested.
CraigT_1
Advisor

Re: Expanding a partition

Thanks for the help. I was replacing the disks throughout the week. All was going well until I replaced the 3rd disk in the array. Windows reports: Logical drive 2,on Chassis Name , configured on
Array Controller [Embedded], returned a fatal error on a read/write request on the volume.
Logical block address 8c6e0ff, block count 8, command 20, drive bus 2 and Drive Id 3.

The Disk (Drive Id3) was replaced a few days ago and did not report any errors until I replaced with the 3rd disk I was doing today. However later on a windows error reported:Recovery of logical drive 2, configured on
Array Controller [Embedded], was aborted while rebuilding physical drive with DEVICE ID 4 on Port 2 due to an unrecoverable read error. The physical drive reporting the error is DEVICE ID 3 on Port 2.

Im confused, is the new drive I put into device id 4 this morning damaged or the device id 3 I put in 2 days ago?

Let me know if I need to explain in different terms. Help appreciated.

Thanks
TTr
Honored Contributor

Re: Expanding a partition

Everytime you replace a drive, you have to wait until it completely rebuilds itself before you go on to replace the next one. It looks that you followed this rule. Also keep in mind that when a drive is rebuilding, the array runs without any "redundancy". What I suspect happened is, when you replaced the 3rd drive, the array was rebuilding it from the other drives in the RAID group. During that time one of the other drives in the raid group, either failed, or it developed a read error which not only made the rebuilding of the replaced drive impossible, but caused loss of data in the raid group. I hope you backed up your data before you started this process. The windows errors are read errors on the raid volume. Check what the ACU shows about all this.
CraigT_1
Advisor

Re: Expanding a partition

Hi,
Yes the ACU reports recovery errors and read errors. I believe what you said in your post has happened. Ive spoken with HP helpdesk and one thing they did advise is to put the original disk I took out back in to see if the array can rebuild? What affect will this have????

I think we are coming to the solutions of destroying the array and rebuild with the 4 x 300GB disks and restore back from backup.


Cheers for the help guys