TC2110 hard disk upgrade.

[Salvador Navejas]

Hello:

I have a TC2110 with 2 hard disk SCSI 18GB (P1167A) and a HP NETRAID 1M Disk Array Controller (P3410A). I have a RAID 1 (Mirror)

I am running MS SBS 2000

Now, we need more hard disk space. The problem is that I can't stop the server more than 4 hours.

I was thinking to put 2 more hard drives, but the HP specifications says the server can have only 3 hard disks.

I was thinking to put an external cage... ¿can i?

Any ideas are welcome.

Best Regard

[Sunil Jerath]

Hello,
I believe there is not much you can do with these Servers. The only choice you have is to backup your data and install larger capacity HDDs in the system and then restore.

Regards,

[e4services]

Salvador,
The TC2110 has only a Single-channel, Ultra3 SCSI controller PCI card, or Dual-channel U33/66/100 IDE controller. THe NetRADI card has One 68-pin, high-density internal connector; One 68-pin, ultra-high-density
external connector. You can add a external enclosure to the external connector, but remember that Devices per SCSI Channel are limited to Up to 12 Ultra3 SCSI hard drives.
The TC2110 has only 3 total hard drive mounting shelves. But you could probably get another in the external Tape Drive bay if it is not being used.

[Salvador Navejas]

But, which external storage device do you recomend?

[Greg Carlson]

Your best solution may be to install a product like a NAS product family and use the shared storage over the network. You have options of 320gb, 640gb and 1tb

http://h71016.www7.hp.com/dstore/SubFamilies.asp?oi=E9CED&BEID=19701&SBLID=&ProductLineId=450&FamilyId=1158&LowBaseId=10239&LowPrice=$999.00

[Greg Carlson]

Salvador,

I was reading the documentation for the TC2110 and you can have 4 common tray devices installed. So if you don't have a tape drive, then you could take it to a fourth hdd. If you have an internal tape drive installed, you'll be limited to three hdds. One option is to go external with your tape drive and free up the 4th slot. Otherwise if you are looking at external storage, I would go with a NAS 1000/1200. Since you have a netraid 1m, you would need another controller for any external storage and the NAS has that built in. Plus it puts the storage resources on the NAS instead of that TC2110 which is limited on resources.

Ciao,
Greg

[Salvador Navejas]

Thank you.

Do you think there is NO problem putting 4 internal hard drives?

I don't have a TAPE DRIVE.

I am asking because in all the documentacion HP says the TC2110 only supports 3 hard drives.

[Greg Carlson]

Salvador,

There definately is not a problem with going to 4 hard drives total. The server is capable of 4 internal common tray devices, whether it is 3 hdds and one tape or 4 hdds.

Ciao,
Greg

[Greg Carlson · Accepted solution]

Salvador, Also if you install 2 more hdds internally to the Netraid 1m, you won't need any downtime other than installing the hdds. You'll be able to do capacity expansion within the operating system and migrate from Raid 1 to Raid 5.

Here is the documentation on how to expand your Array in the NOS.

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?locale=en_US&taskId=115&prodSeriesId=74354&prodTypeId=15351&objectID=lpn14589

Greg

[Salvador Navejas]

One more question....

I think I can expand the array capacity.

If I do this, I will need to make another PARTITION en Windows 2000. Is it righ?

Can I grow the existing partitions? How can I do it? Do I a need a especial software like Paragon Partition Manager?

Best Regards

Salvador.

[amhakassa]

Hi Salvador,

Yopu can partition it as new or if you have a dynamic disk you can expand the volume. But if it is a basic disk I don't think you can expand the partition other than creating a new partion

Regards
Amha Kassa

[Greg Carlson]

Salvador,

Here is some documentation on extending partitions in Server 2000 from MS.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;q325590

hth,
Greg

[Greg Carlson]

Salvador,

According to the documentation on the MS document. You can even extend the partition on a basic disk on a hardware Raid 5. So you should be ok with this upgrade and capacity expansion. Obviously whenever you make a big change to the config, make sure you have your data backed up incase something goes wrong. When you do the capacity expansion in netraid assistant, you are performing a rebuild of the raid 1 data onto the new hdds as a new stripe.

Good luck and post any other questions you have.

Greg

[Salvador Navejas]

Thank you !!!!

[Greg Carlson]

De Nada!

Ciao,
Greg