How to upgrade hot-swap drives without rebooting?

[johnzbesko]

I have a Proliant DL380 G2 that has an issue with the Smart Array 5i (

http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=1399006)

that I am reluctant to cold-boot.

I wish to replace one pair of 18GB drives with a 36GB pair. Can I simply replace the pair one at a time? Should I partition and format the replacements first in another machine? Currently, the 18GB pair are partitioned in one partition, mounted separately from the rest of the system.

Any advice is appreciated, since I don't want to upset my family by screwing up our home server/router.

 

[TheLad]

As always, ensure you have a successful backup prior to starting any procedure like this, however if you are reluctant to cold boot the server because of an issue, it may not be advisable to do anything like this.

But presuming the 18Gb pair is mirrored, if you remove 1 of the 18Gb disks and replace it for a 36Gb disk, the server should automatically transfer the mirror back to the new disk (although only 18Gb will be used).

Once this process has completed, if you take the 2nd 18Gb disk out and replace that with the 2nd new 36Gb disk, the same process should transfer the data to the new disk.

In essence you will end up with 2 x 36Gb disks although you will have to extend the logical volume and your OS volumes to utilise the new diskspace.

With a server of this size, Ghosting the server to an image, replacing and reconfiguring the server to use the 36Gb disks, then restoring the image back (resizing the OS volumes to suit) may be a better solution.

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[johnzbesko]

Thanks for your reply. You confirm what I was hoping. My intent is to replace the drives one at a time, after partitioning the new drives with one larger partition and formatted with the same type filesystem.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by extending the logical and OS volumes. Currently, the pair are mounted as /ext. I plan to unmount them, replace one drive, remount, and then later, unmount, replace the other drive and remount. I'm hoping I would then have a 36GB /ext instead of an 18GB.

 

[TheLad]

After you replace the drives, you will have to extend the logical volume (via the Array Configuration Utility) as the extra 18Gb of diskspace will be unallocated. Then you can get your OS to see the extra diskspace and assign accordingly

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[pogi05]

Hi John and TheLad,

I am actually trying to do the same thing here with a disk array at our office. It currently has 12 - 18GB disks in it. We would like to swap them with 36GB. Can we swap one at a time and allow for replication, then later go back into the array configuration utility and then extend the logical volume?

Thanks,

Chris

 

[blister911]

Assuming that none the 12 drives are in a RAID 0, yes.

 

[burtsbees]

Actually, only if they are mirrored pairs or a big RAID5, preferrably with a hot spare configured. If it's just a JBOD, then no.

Burt