Lh3000 + Raid Question

[Stephane Delisle]

LH3000 + 2x18 Gig in raid 0 + 3x36Gig in raid 5
- I'm using windows 2000 + hardware on embedded raid card of LH3000.

My question : Can I add one more disk in the raid 5 without reformat ?

Thank You

[Terri Harris · Accepted solution]

Yes you can if the RAID 5 was created as a single logical drive (in the HP RAID utilities, has nothing to do with what has been configured in 2000 Disk Manager).
The easiest way to work with the NetRAID arrays is to have NetRAID Assistant installed under Windows. This will also be the easiest way to "add online capacity" = adding additional drives to an existing RAID array.

TO INSTALL NETRAID ASSISTANT FROM THE HP NAVIGATOR CD:

x:\periph\netraid\nt\us\setup.exe

TO INSTALL NETRAID ASSISTANT FROM THE HP WEB SITE:

ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/servers/software/nrutnt.exe

a. Download NetRAID Assistant to your hard drive. This can be done on any computer. The file is nrutnt.exe. Two formatted diskettes are needed.

b. Double-click on the executable file you downloaded. This will create 2 program disks for installing NetRAID Assistant.

c. Insert the first install diskette and run SETUP.EXE within NT/2000. A wizard will step you through the install process.

d. When the install is complete, you are asked to reboot. If you do not want (or cannot) reboot the server at this time, you do NOT have to reboot to run NetRAID Assistant. Do not enter Disk Administrator or Disk Manager unless Windows has been rebooted after this install.

e. Run NetRAID Assistant by selecting START - PROGRAMS - NetRAID Assistant.

USING NETRAID ASSISTANT TO ADD ONLINE CAPACITY:

1. Physically install the drive. It will show up in NetRAID Assistant as READY under the PHYSICAL DEVICES.

Note: More than one drive can be added at the same time. One RAID array can have a maximum of 8 physical drives.

a. Select the READY drive(s) by clicking on it once. It will be highlighted.

b. Select your RAID array under Logical Devices. For example, for a RAID 5 array, Logical Drive 0, click directly on the line "LD 0: RAID 5: xxx MB".

c. Select the pull-down menu LOGICAL DRV - CHANGE CONFIG - Add Capacity.

A dialog window will open and ask "Add selected Physical Drive(s) to selected Logical Drive?"

d. Click on OK to the Add question. If you do not get this question, the physical drive and logical RAID array have not been selected properly.

e. The final window is CHANGE RAID LEVEL. Be sure RAID 5 is selected. Click on the APPLY button.

f. The RAID 5 array will begin reconstructing to add the new drive. This uses 50% of your computer resources. The server can be used, but it will run slower than normal until the reconstruction is complete.

g. If virtual sizing was not enabled for the existing RAID array (default is virtual sizing is not enabled), NT/2000 will not see the new drive space until NT/2000 is restarted. You only need to restart once.

h. The new drive space will be seen in NT Disk Administrator (or Disk Manager in 2000) as free space. Use Disk Administrator/Manager to allocate the free space as desired.

[Theo Hill_1]

Have you converted to dynamic discs?

[e4services]

We have seen customer have problems if the RAID included the OS Boot Sector and they use this "add" function. But I am assuming by your configuration not that the OS exists on the RAID 0, a good install arrangement.