LH3000 Netserver NT4 adding disk capacity

[Chuck_55]

Running out of disk space. One Logical drive consisting of 3 physical drives RAID 5, NetRaid 4M controller. I am unfamiliar with Netserver. Can I install a new 18Gb SCSI drive and use NetRaid to add this to the existing logical drive without having to backup data to tape, reformat and restore ?

[e4services · Accepted solution]

Definately,
Yes. Though NT does not support logical drive expansion like 2000, the NetRAID software does have the capability to "Online Capacity Expansion" for logical disks(the RAID5 is a logical Disk not to be confised with the OS (NT) logical drive (D: say). See your NetRAID User Guide for more details, or go to our support pages at our site, I think it is listed there also.
One thing I have never under stood is why the Proliant SmartRAID software handles this a bit more cleaner, with the ability built in to extend logical drives. DO not know hwy it is left off of the NetRAID software.
"Normally, adding capacity requires shutting down the server to reconfigure/restore an existing volume or to add the new storage space as a new volume. Using the Online Capacity Expansion feature allows you to expand an existing logical drive without shutting down the server."
Notes:
-The space will be added as free space on the Logical Disk.
-The Online Capacity Expansion feature is supported only on arrays that contain just one logical Disk each.
- Virtual Sizing must be Enabled on the Logical Disk
1. Add the new physical drive to the adapter by plugging the additional drive into an empty hot-swap storage slot connected to the adapter.
2. Bring up HP NetRAID Assistant under Windows NT.
3. Select the logical Disk and the new physical drive.
4. Select menus "Logical Drive", then "Change Config", then "Add Capacity".
The logical will rebuild.
If the expanded capacity and the original capacity must share the same drive letter,
you must restart Windows NT. Next in NT Disk Administrator, identify the added capacity as an extended partition, and then select the original and new (extended) partition. Use the selection Extend Partition to make the two partitions share the same drive letter (E: for this example). You need to restart Windows NT before any part of E:
becomes available again. If you accidentally enter more capacity than is actually available, Windows NT will detect the error upon restarting as it executes a check-disk operation on the extended volume.