adding hard drives to DL380 G5

[DLT]

Hello,

I’m needing some input on how and if I can add hard drives to a Proliant DL380 G5 with attached MSA50 with RAID 1.  I have 2 bays available on the DL380 and 4 on the MSA50.  I’ve been asked for ‘more space’ on the server.  This is the primary database server so a ‘do over’ is not an option. 

Can I:

Simply add two drives to the DL380 and two to the MSA50 and configure through HP System Management?

Or

Have to shut the system down, install the drives and configure during startup?

Is there any KB notes or articles to walk me through this?

Regards,

D

[Alex Geroulaitis]

The answer is specific to a RAID controller.  If you have one of the HP Smart Array controllers, and have both the external enclosure and the internal drives connected to the same controller - then most likely the answer to your question is yes, you can insert the drive "live", and expand the capacity of your existing volumes or create new ones.  You would use an HP Array Configuration Utility (ACU) for that.  Here is the User's Guide.

Disclaimer: you may want to delegate this to someone who's had a bit more experience working with RAID controllers and sets, especially on a production mission critical database server.  A small misstep can cost dearly in terms of data loss and users' downtime.

[DLT]

Perfect!  That's what I needed to know.

Thank you!

[DLT]

Hi Alex,

took a look at the RAID controllers - what I have is: in the server -Smart Array P400 in Slot 1 and on the external enclosure - Smart Array P800 in Slot 3.  as you mentioned I should be able to shove the drives in and configure through the HP ACU.  the drives that are currently in the server are SAS 72 GB and what I want to put in are Dual Port SAS 146 GB drives.  I did read on the HP website that you can use Dual Port in a single port - seems the single ports are/have been phased out.  trying to do some careful planning here.  the two slots in the server will be configured with RAID 1 and the four slots in the external will be configured with RAID 10.  Just want to confirm that I can use the larger hard drives without issue.

thanks for your input,

DLT

[Rick Curtis_3]

I think perhaps we need just a bit more information regarding your current drive arrays to make sure that we are all on the same page.  Everything that Alex said is absolutely correct, but expanding space depends on how your original drives are set up.  You mentioned RAID 1 at one point.  I may be mistaken, but I don't think you can expand a RAID 1 array.  If you have a RAID 5, then yes...you can expand.  I just finished doing this on one of my G5s.

Can you tell us the physical and logical layout (as shown via the ACU) of your existing drives?

If all you have are RAID 1 arrays, I think you will be limited to creating new arrays with your bigger drives (using your open slots) and copying the data from the old to the new.

[DLT]

Hello,

The current setup is as follows:

On the server – Smart Array P400 in Slot1

                SAS Array A – 1 Logical Drive(s)

                Logical Drive 1 (68.3 GB, RAID 1)

                SAS Array B – 1 Logical Drives(s)

                Logical Drive 2 (68.3 GB, RAID 1)

                SAS Array C – 1 Logical Drive(s)

                Logical Drive 3 (68.3 GB, RAID 1)

On the attached enclosure – Smart Array P800 in Slot 3

                SAS Array A – 1 Logical Drive(s)

                Logical Drive 1 (205.0 GB, RAID 1+0)

What I’d like to do is add two 146 GB drives to the server using RAID 1 (to add an additional logical drive 4) and four 146 GB drives to the attached enclosure using RAID 10 (to add an additional logical drive 2). 

[DLT]

Just an FYI, it went fine.  shoved the drives in and ACU found the drives no problem.  was actually pretty simple and easy.

Thanks for the help and guidance.