Raid 1 to Raid5

[Ayman Altounji]

SITUATION:
DL380 was configured with (2) 18.2 G drives in RAID1. Users have maxed out drive capacity and additional storage is required. I have a very short maintanance window to work in. I am also fortunate to have 3 spare drives and a Proliant 3000 system available.

If I preconfigure the spare drives on the Proliant 3000, in Raid5, then load the OS, can I then pop the drives into the DL380 and do a selective restore?

What are the ramifications on the Compaq System Partition?

[Ayman Altounji]

the smart 3200 does support drive expansion AND raid migration.
just add more drives (in your case 18gb or larger) and add the drives to your existing array. start ACU (array configuration utility).
now click on raid migration and select raid 5. if you see free space (marked yellow) click on your existing logical drive (purple) and click on expand drive. use all available space.
NOW click on save settings (do not do it before otherwise you have to wait longer).
this expansion/migration can be done ONLINE !! Even while the system is active! Just be aware that the performance is lower during reconfiguration. You have even Raid protection during he whole process.

Please upgrade the smart firmware before you do all this. Must be 4.44 minimum if you have a 3200.

i have done this many times

ernesto from germany (compaq server training)