After replacing RAID drive with bigger disks, what next? 2

[BrianH1]

I have to upgrade a Compaq ML370's disks, by replacing the current 9.2GB drives with 18.2GB drives.

I have read several helpful tips on Tek-Tips that say I can pop the disks, one by one, add the larger disks, and then let the array rebuild, but there is little information on what to do next. (I.e. after following the Compaq whitepaper Compaq Recommended SMART Array Rebuilding / Restoring Techniques)

If this were a Netware server, I could use CPQONLIN.NLM, but the server is NT4 Terminal Server (With Citrix). Is there a procedure I need to follow to make sure that the full capacity of the bigger disks is available?

Apologies in advance if this has been answered previously, I have checked the forums, but didn't find anything.

 

[TheLad]

One way of doing it is to down the server, go into F10 System Partition (on bootup), select the Array Configuration Utility, and you may have to create the extra diskspace as a seperate logical drive.

To allocate the diskspace within NT, I guess you may have to use something like Partition Magic to stretch the partition of your choice. -----------------------------------------------------
"It's true, its damn true!"
-----------------------------------------------------

 

[BrianH1]

I'd found suggestions like that, all a bit vague. I'm really after a post from someone who has done it, and who knows the answer to the "I guess" and "Something like that" bits. I have to do this on a live financial forecasting server for a major client and need to be prepared.

 

[TheLad]

Ok, how does this sound:

--------------------------------------------------------
One way of doing it is to down the server, go into F10 System Partition (on bootup), select the Array Configuration Utility, and you may have to create the extra diskspace as a seperate logical drive.

To allocate the diskspace within NT, you will have to use Partition Magic or an equilavent utility to stretch the partition of your choice. This is a procedure that I have performed many times with success.
--------------------------------------------------------

Is that any better? -----------------------------------------------------
"It's true, its damn true!"
-----------------------------------------------------

 

[TheLad]

Sorry, left a "may be" in:

Ok, how does this sound:

--------------------------------------------------------
One way of doing it is to down the server, go into F10 System Partition (on bootup), select the Array Configuration Utility, and you will have to create the extra diskspace as a seperate logical drive. This is a procedure that I have performed many times with success.

To allocate the diskspace within NT, you will have to use Partition Magic or an equilavent utility to stretch the partition of your choice. This is a procedure that I have performed many times with success.

Before you do any procedure like this, ensure you have a couple of decent backups.
--------------------------------------------------------

Is that any better? -----------------------------------------------------
"It's true, its damn true!"
-----------------------------------------------------

 

[Sunny79]

Brian These are your steps:
Im hoping you have a raid controller that supports extension, If you don't know call the support line and find out.
Here goes:
1. Install the new drives one by one and let each drive rebuild.
2. Once the new drives are all incorporated you will see a yellow icon in the ACU(Array Configuration Utility) called Unused Space. (Here is the part your extension capable controller comes into play). High light the existing drive and click the extension button in the ACU. This will start an extension of your logical drive, not to be confused with expansion.
a. Extension--Will make your existing drive 0 in the
Disk Administrator become bigger, and the new space
you aquire is added to your existing logical drive.
b. Expansion--Will make a new disk ie. drive 1 in your
Disk Administrator. Also it will create a new
logical drive in the ACU.
3. Now that you have successfully Extended your existing logical drive in the ACU, go to the O.S. and you will see Disk 0 which ie. was 8GB before become 17GB big. One thing though, if you only created a C:\ drive 8GB big you will see the C:\ drive and a new unformatted space of 9GB.
4. This is where, if you want to use Partition Magic, you can go ahead and streach your drive C:\ over to incorporate the new space or just highligh your drive C:\ hold ctrl+D and then click the new space. You have just done a volume set, which works fine also.

I personally would recommend using partition magic at this point instead of doing the ctrl+D option.

And, TheLad is no amature, so try not to pi$$ people like him off, cause im sure of his capabilities; he may not decide to help you next time leaving you in deep $hit with your MAJOR CLIENT.

 

[BrianH1]

Many thanks to both Sunny and TheLad, and I apologise if my comments seemed less than professional. I would have been completely satisfied knowing that this procedure had been performed many times in the past.

 

[epohl]

Just one more thing, since this is a NT Server you will have to use Volume Manager instead of Partition magic. I believe Sunny and TheLad have given much better instructions than any of the white papers I have read from Compaq.

 

[TheLad]

Aw thanks Sunny79 - we're all friends here!

In fact I have just completed upgrades on two ML530 servers from 18.2Gb disks to 36.4Gb disks and as usual it worked like a charm. -----------------------------------------------------
"It's true, its damn true!"
-----------------------------------------------------

 

[BrianH1]

OK, the saga continues.

The server's drives were popped one by one and the new ones installed. All OK.

Now VolumeManager. It didn't recognise the array. It wouldn't see the space or the data.

As this box had Citrix installed (MetaFrame 1.8) the drives had been re-mapped so C: is M: and D: is N:

PowerQuest have looked at this, after telling us that they use the product on their Citrix servers, and have told us that it will not work with remapped drives in a Citrix environment and there is no technical solution at this time.

We have since performed a disaster restore backup and restore to the system after rebuilding the array with all the available space.

 

[patrickrouse]

I hear people talking about using Partition Magic on servers which is not possible unless you use the DOS version and a boot disk. If needing to do this from within Windows NT Server/2000 Server you'll need Server Magic/Volume Manager.

This would work with your Citrix Server as well, since your drives aren't remapped until Windows is loaded.

This being said you should NEVER attempt any of this w/o a valid, tested backup and if using Volume Manager you shouldn't do it while users are connected to this server, as resizing Partitions/Volumes is pretty I/O & Processor Intensive.

 

[sg4me]

Chunk123,
I am not sure about MetaFrame 1.8 but in MetaFrame XP you can use the driveremap command to reverse the drive mappings.

From the command line type: driveremap /u /drive:M /drive:C
(This example shows how to reverse M: back to C

Hope this helps.

 

[ntinlin]

As Patrick says VolumeManager does work with Citrix as long as you use the 'DOS' boot disk to do it.
I did it last month and it worked very well.
One tip is to turn off error checking if you aren't paranoid and you are running on RAID. This will speed up the expansion considerably.

Must say that the price difference between VolumeManager and Partition Magic is absolutely scandalous.

 

[natxanadu]

do you think this sort of upgrade would cause problems for qmail and its use of inode numbers ?