VMWARE ESXi and ACU- How to expand an Array?

[WFPL4E]

I have an HP BL680C and other production servers using 2 X 146GB SAS drives in RAID 1, on which I installed VMWARE ESXi. Running short of disk space, I rebuilt my Array with 300GB SAS drives. So far, everything is working fine, I did not have to interrupt my production software, but the problem is that I do not know how to expand my Array to 300GB? – How can I install the ACU Software and expand the Array without shutting down my servers? (I have done the same thing on Windows and it was very smooth, I hope I can do the same with VMWARE ESXi. Please advise. Thanks

[Rob Buxton · Accepted solution]

As this is ESXi there is no console to install software into. So although there's a Linux variant of the ACU, there nowhere to install it to.
Not sure you're going to be able to do that other than a reboot and use the onboard FW to do this.
Using local disk is okay for a small ESX/ESXi implementation but if you're going to grow it you really need to look at remote storage, SAN, iSCSI etc.

[Uwe Zessin]

I don't think you can do advanced SmartArray management functions with the on-motherboard software, but the SmartStart CD has a version of ACU that should be more capable:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=3709945&prodSeriesId=3454580&prodNameId=3562397&swEnvOID=1005&swLang=8&mode=2&taskId=135&swItem=MTX-ff528c1bc8434a01b314485325

[Niels Vejrup Pedersen]

Go for the SmartStart bootable. Run ACU from here.

Remember on the newer controllers you will be required a licens to expand arrays.

(Depending on the Gx version of you blade)

Regards