Help with RAID 1

[lhuegele]

We have a PowerEdge 2400 running NT 4 that has been our file server for years. We are now migrating storage duties to a NAS device and the question has come up that I'm sure may be stupid to most of you.

We have a 4 simple volumes of 10.5 GB each. One volume has been migrated to the NAS device and we want to now take that 10.5 GB and increase the free space on the remaining 3 volumes. Is this possible, and if so, how is it accomplished?

Thanks in advance for any help you can give.

Larry

 

[ChuckCraig]

Parition magic, btw not supported by dell.... make sure to have a good backup.

 

[lhuegele]

Well thanks for the suggestion ChuckCraig. I didn't think that PM would work in a SCSI environment but your suggestion is worth looking into. I thought in a RAID environment you could increase volume size on the fly, but I guess not under NT.

Thanks again.

 

[galileo3000]

If I understand this correctly, you want to dynamically expand virtual disk defined by a hardware raid controller. This cannot be done even with parition magic without losing the data. The best way to do this is to back up all data on all partitions, recreate the raid array as you desire, restore the data to the drives. Hope this helps.

 

[lhuegele]

Thanks Galileo. That's what I figured but you confirmed. Appreciate the response.

Larry

 

[NickFerrar]

Not sure I totally understand the situation you are describing. You have a 42GB RAID set of which was divided into 4 logical volumes of 10.5GB (lets say D: E: F: and G: for now...). Now one of these (e.g. G: ) you have migrated all the data off and is empty and you want to make D: E: and F: 13.8GB(ish) each?

If that's the case couldn't it be done with volume sets? Assuming you can have multiple volue sets per system and the system partition isn't on this RAID array then you could just reformat the G: partition and create 3 volume sets and allocate the space between them by combining the current volumes + the new areas of free space so you end up with 3 volume sets?

 

[MJewell]

I think the biggest question that defines wether or not you can increase the size of the volumes is is it defined as 1 container thats 42gb, or is it defined as 4 seperate volumes of 10.5gb...

If it's all 1 container you could delete the partition and span the volume into the free space created...

If it's 4 seperate containers then what Galileo said is correct, you need to delete the containers and reload...

Mike

 

[ChuckCraig]

PERC stands for Power Edge EXPANDABLE raid controler. You can add a disk to an array (for example to change a raid 1 to a raid 5) without a problem, the problem comes in with expanding the current partitions. Since it is best to use simple disks with a raid, you dont want to create another partiton and create a striping volume set out of the two. (pluss this can cause problems if you do this with the system partition as if you try to re-install or do a co-install (for emergency recovery) you will not be able to install on a software raid partition.

So if you exend your drive space and want to expand the partition to include that new space you need somthing like partition magic (which will work on SCSI raid (if you get the scsi version)). But the suggested course is to add the drive to the array, backup your data and repartition, then restore data.