Extend Partition

[RichardL]

I am looking to extend the partition size of a raid 5 array by adding another disk to a cluster array and would like some help to ensure it doesn't go wrong! I have a live/redundant server setup running w2k Advanced -SP4. I currently have three 36Gb drives configured as RAID5 array and want to increase capacity. I have added a fourth 36GB drive and used the ACU to extend the array - all looking good so far.

I have a status message of "#785: Background parity initialization is currently queued or in progress on logical drive 1..." that has sat there for approx two weeks - how do I get rid of this?

I can see that there is 33.92GB of unallocated space under Windows Disk Management. What do I use to use that space? I have Acronis Disk Director and can use this to resize my raid 5 array but it wants to reboot afterwards and I'm nervous about doing this, since I expect control of the disk array to pass to my redundant server, therefore making it impossible for Acronis DD to do whatever it is intending to do on reboot!

What I am trying to carry out is simply and exactly what the hardware setup is intended for (to easily increase drive capacity), so there must be guidelines and it must be easy to do, so am I just being overly cautious and just need to go ahead with the reboot option?

[Chris Rosan]

Richard,

I don't have any W2k servers anymore, and never had to do this when I did, but under w2k3 all you need to do is add the unpartitioned space to the existing disk. The disk needs to be dynamic, and as I don't run any windows clusters I'm not sure what affect will this have.

[RichardL]

Due to the nature of the issue I kind of need an exact answer to what to do! I could convert the disk from basic to dynamic but if it doesn't work, can I revert back?

[Kedd Guyton]

Chris, you may want to confirm that Dynamic Disks and MSCS (Microsoft Clustering Services) are compatible. I don't think they are.

[CA1370028]

Richard, what you did is exactly what you should have done, for the next step if you are extending your data partition I would use diskpart command from windows, if you are using w2k you might have to do some updating to have it available, however if this is your bootable partition, Disk director is your only chance, and Iwould request some down time so you can actually reboot to the same server ( down the other node), also remember this would have to be done in both nodes if the boot from different OS which they should.

[RichardL]

The diskpart extend command worked fine - almost too easy! Didn't have to reboot but did so to check and all still working fine.

I do still have the status message about background parity that I would like to resolve - any ideas on that one?

A new question - am I right in thinking that, due to the way raid 5 works, I can only increase by 36GB at a time i.e. the size of the smallest drive?

[apple13140]

Actually, the question you asked has discussed for a long time, and many computer users are not very sure how to realize it perfectly, certainly the minority of computer experts included.

I am very lucky, and I got the useful information about the efficient method to work it out.

So, now, maybe after you do as I said, you will find that extend partition is not difficult any longer.

Go and see the website I linked.