Restructuring RAID Array

[James Bertram]

I have a ML350 that is running ciritically shrot on storage. It is currently configured for RAID 5 with one spare and has one bay empty. I want to increase storage but am concerned about using 3rd party software to increase the size of the logical drive when the new drive is added as I have seen quite a few OS's go corrupt, and as this is an SQL server that would be a disaster (I know it is configured for RAID wrong but I didn't build it!). Does anyone have any recommendations on how to best proceed? I was thinking to just add a new drive to the array, then run 3rd party software to increase the logical drive size and then to increase the size of the data partition. Is there an easier way to go?

[Dan Robinson_4]

HP Will let you "Expand" an existing Array.

Windows 2000/2003 will let you use expand a volume only if its a "Dynamic Disk".



Past that, your gonna have to deal with 3rd party tools, or Backup and Restore.

Personally Partition Magic kinda scares me, but depending no how much data you have, you can also Ghost the data up to a file server, expand the array and then Ghost all the data back down. Ghost will allow you to stretch the image on the way back down to use the full drive space available. And I have had much less trouble with Ghost over the years than Partition Magic. But maybe thats just me.