RAID 1 Upgrade

[littlegates]

I have a client who is running out of space on a PowerEdge 840 Server, Dell SAS 5/ir adapter, running SBS2003. They currently have RAID1 setup on 2 250GB drives. I've purchased 2 1TB drives and here is the process that I performed to update the drives.

Removed drive 1 and replaced it with a new one. Let the drive sync. Removed drive 0 and replaced it with a new one. Rebooted the server.

Now I'm back to square one with the space. It was like I never even installed two new drives.

My question is how to I get that space back? I've tried using Disk Management, Dell Open Manage Software, and a partition utility. Where did I go wrong?

Please advise.....anyone.

PCS3035
It's not about what you know, it's about how well you can google search to find the answer! DD 3:16

 

[karlisi]

When you replaced first 250GB drive with bigger, RAID manager made exact copy of the original 250GB, and left 750GB unused. After you change another drive, RAID manager made exact copy of this split drive, so there should be 250GB partitioned and 750GB unused space you can partition for a new volume.

Better and safer way is to make full backup of existing installation, repartition disks, install Windows and restore from backup.

===
Karlis
ECDL; MCSA

 

[Zipster]

You could try using diskpart to extend:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/325590

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[blister911]

How many partitions do you have?

As far as I remember you can't expand the boot partition (C:\) with any version of 2003, although, this has change with 2008.

If you have another partition you could extend that with diskpart. If you don't your options are basically:

1. Create a new partition using the newly available space
2. Follow karlisi's advise and rebuild
3. Find a 3rd party software that can do the expansion

The safest is option #1, but it may not work for your configuration.

If you do option #2:
I would replace the original drives (first one, let it sync then the second and let it sync), back them up (verify the backup is valid), pull them both, insert the 2 new ones, repartition, then re-install and restore. This way you'd have 2 backup copies of the data, with one being the original pair of disks that can be put back into the server if anything goes horribly wrong.

Personally, I don't like option #3, but I've heard of others having success with it.

Good luck.



Light travels faster than sound. That's why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

 

[technome]

No disk partitioning software will expanded the array from 250Gig to the full size of the new disks, as they only work at the OS layer. Unlike raid 5, raid 1 unallocated space at the adapter level can not be incorporated into an existing volume.
To expand the original array size to the new disk size you will need to clone or work from an image, using an option to expand to the full size of the destination disk....or as mentioned work from a backup. Cloning/imaging the drives are far less time consuming, unless your server is a very simple setup.


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