REplace Drives on DL380 G4 with larger drives

[Donnie Barnes]

We have an exchange server that is running low on drive space and we need to replace the drives with larger ones.

I have been wondering what is the best way to do this. Should I backup with symantec livestate, replace the drives, create the new arrays, then restore the livestate information?

I was not sure if that would work or not. Doesn't most backup programs restore the partitions also.

Just would like advice on the way to appoach this.

[Igor Karasik · Accepted solution]

Hi,

I don't sure about Symantec livestate but I have used Symantec Ghost for backup/restore on larger drives - works perfect.

See this thread for more information:
http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=1027500

[Donnie Barnes]

So let me see you backup, replace drives, setup arrays and partitions, restore just the data on the new partitions because I know ghost would keep the same paritions that the previous drives had.

[Mike Bollman_1]

Actually you can replace the drives one for one and let the array rebuild after each one. Once you have swapped all the existing spindles for larger capacity you can perform an online array expansion. Then if this is a windows box use diskpart to extend the volume.

as always be sure you have a good back before begining this process. However, if done right it is a 100% online operation.

[chongkan]

Hi, Donnie

I just wrote this in another reply:

Open ACU again, in the middle colum, on the top right of that colum, it says "Show Physical view", click it and you'll see how many HDDs does each Logical Drive has.

Now, from what ever RAID configuration you're migrating from, what you have to do is:

Go to ACU and set rebuild priority to high, select the controller, go to the option at the right column and set it to high, if setting extend priority to high too is allowed, do it at this point. Save changes.

At this point you have to decide: Would you like to this process online ( slower ) or offline ( faster )?

Online could be done by ACU over Windows so the server can stay up but the overall performance will be degraded and the process could take more than 1 day or more depending on the servers utilization.

The offline process could take up to 2-4 hours or less cause all resources are being use to complete the process.

1- Always use drives with the same size in the same RAID to avoid loosing the "extra" space..
2- Replace one drive at the time and let it rebuild completely. ( Until the green arrow on the drive stops blinking )
3- once all drives has been replaced and all rebuilds have taken place, go to ACU, select the controller, select option or properties, look for and extend the old logical drive to use all available space.
4- Once extended, use Partition Magic Offline to to expand the logical volume..
5- There are some issues expanding the System volume with Diskpart, search "fsextend.exe" on google.
6- Search "diskpart.exe + download" on google to find the utility.

Regards.

Here is a link to teh other reply:

http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=1063543

[Donnie Barnes]

If I just wanted to increase the space on the c drive could I incert a new HD same size and use Diskpart to increse the partition? Can this be done, or does diskpart not do this on the system partition.

[Igor Karasik]

>>or does diskpart not do this on the
system partition.

Diskpart cannot be used on system partition on windows 2000
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/325590/en-us
"Only the extension of data volumes is supported. System or boot volumes may be blocked from being extended, and you may receive the following error... "
On windows 2003 it will PROBABLY work, but it is not supported

[chongkan]

I've tried like 5 times to extend teh volume drive on Windows 2003 by using disk part and it doesn't work. Try Partition Magic Offline Instead, I've tried that over XP and it worked.