Increasing RAID5 capacity

[taliotta]

I currenty have four 36.4gig drives in a compaq DL580. Can I remove one of the drives and install a 75gig drive to increase my capacity, then after it becomes part of the raid array can I then replace the other drives in the same fashion. Or should I buy an external raid array and use the SCSI port on the back of the server for access.

 

[terry712]

yep you can just swap the drives one at a time and have 4 * 75 gb drives

that works atreat - done this lots of times
just verify that it has rebuild before swapping next one

i know with netware 6 this config takes about 10 - 15 mins per drive

 

[TheLad]

When you have swapped all four drives individually, you will have to use the Array Utility to create an additional Logical Drive (don't think you can extend the existing one) to get use of the additional disk space. Then when that is created, you can utilise it.

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"It's true, its damn true!"
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[tf1]

This definitely works with mirrored drives (RAID1); it is something we have done frequently, though usually we reserve the original 18Gb for the system partition and create a new partition(s) for Data. I'm not 100% convinced that the Compaq utility will allow you to expand your RAID5 array though and you may need to create either a new logical drive or partition for the new disk capacity. I don't see why it shouldn't and I would be very interested to know if it will let you expand the array. Would you send me the results of your experience please to colossos@gmail.com

Thanks: tf1

 

[ntinlin]

All cards since the 2-DH have allowed expansion of the RAID5 array. And I think all since the 3200 have allowed expansion of a logical drive but I'm not positive on the latter. I'm sure I've done it in the past but can't remember. Might have been a 5300.
Just about to do it again however once I buy a cable. Replacing a 2-DH with a 3200 which of course has the dinky little VHDCI connector which I don't have one for.
Every other type of SCSI cable but that one. :-(

 

[ntinlin]

Just looked at my old course manuals.
Drive expansion

5312 - physical and logical
5304 - ditto
5302 - ditto
532 - ditto
5i / 5i+ - ditto
4200 - ditto
431 - ditto
ROC - ditto
LC2 - no expansion
3200 - physical and logical
4250ES - ditto
3100ES - ditto
2DH - physical
2/P - physical
221 - no expansion
2SL - no expansion

Hope this is helpful to some of you.
Neill

 

[tf1]

Neil

Thanks for the confirmation: I would have been surprised it it couldn't have been done.

Regards: tf1

 

[taliotta]

Thanks guys. I have ordered 5 drives and will try it out next week. I will let you know how it worked out.