How to make DS2100 work with D-class or R-class?

[Raghunandhan Srinivasan]

Thx, Clay. The sysadmin says there are 2 channels on the AutoRaid, each channel has 4 4.3 GB drives in RAID 5, so there is no way to add 9GB drives without removing one set of 4.3 GB drives from one of the channels. We cannot remove any existing disks as they have data in them. So he is planning to use an R-class server and use 2 x 36 = 72 Gig internal drives.
Raghu

[Patrick Wallek]

If the autoraid has only 8 disks in it currently then you have room for 4 more disks. You can have a total of 12 disks. But if the array is already in use by another system you may be better off just using the internal disks like you plan now.

[A. Clay Stephenson]

Your sysadmin is mistaken. First of all, he has absolutely no way of knowing what disks are assigned to which controller or even what disks comprise each LUN. Believe it or not, those questions have absolutely no meaning --- that's why it is called an AutoRAID. In fact, you can add four more drives immediately or you could literally pull one of your existing drives (while the array is quite busy) and insert a larger drive and the array would continue to operate without missing a beat. Applications would continue to run. Once the array has finished rebuilding and balancing, you could yank another drive out and repeat the process. While these arrays are rather slow now, they are amazing from a standpoint of reliability and self-configuration, even now.
Even their much criticized speed was a result of not understanding how to properly configure them and assign LUN's.

[Raghunandhan Srinivasan]

Clay
Thx. Unfortunately we cannot argue this as he is the only sysadmin who is helping us drive this project. We are remote & have no visibilty. When he asked for external array, we sent the DS2100 and now when it does not work, we propose a Jamaica JBOD. Now he says he can use the existing AutoRAID. When we propose that we send 4 x 9G, he says it will not work and now wants to replace the server itself. Its been a month. We are just tired and want some solution that will work. Thx for educating me on the Arrays.
Ragu

[Patrick Wallek]

It sounds like it's not the server that needs replacing.........