Adding disk to a Dynamic volume

[kunz12]

Guys -

I have a Windows 2000 Server that has 5 drives on it running a H/W based RAID5 configuration. The server is a HP Proliant G3 Series.

The C: drive is running low on space, and so is D:\. The drives are configured as "dynamic" and not basic. That being the case, I have C: and D: configured as "volumes". C: is about 6GB, and D: is about 129GB.

The server has 6 hard drive bays, and since one is empty, I am thinking of adding a 6th SCSI drive to extend the RAID array.

My question is:

1. What happens when I add the 6th drive. Using the RAID management utility that came along with the server, can I extend the RAID array to include the 6th drive without causing any damage to existing data?

2. If the answer to the above question is yes, does the space get added to C: or D:? Can I distribute the space from the 6th drive to both C: and D:?

3. Is there a tool I can use to repartition the volumes on the Server? I looked at Acronis and Partion Manager, but both of them do not support dynamic disks.

Your help is greatly appreciated.

 

[itsp1965]

1. Your raid manager can extend the size of your array leaving the space on the new disk as free space

2. Although you can add disks to a simple or spanned dynamic volume, it is not usually recommended that your C: drive be dynamic by nature.
With that said, you should be able to extend your C: drive but make sure you have a good solid backup in case things go awry.

 

[w33mhz]

Check this out. I believe this is HP's software for configuring your RAID via windows.

http://h18023.www1.hp.com/support/files/server/us/download/23397.html