Server HD RAID Upgrade

[Enkrypted]

This is a general question. I've never had to deal with this yet and just want to make sure the best way to do this.

Our current server (HP ProLiant ML350 G4p) is running a RAID 5 with 4 hard drives. The drives are HP 146GB 10K Hot Swap drives. We would like to upgrade our capacity on these drives and I'm looking into getting the 300GB version of these drives.

What's the best way to upgrade the RAID to the newer, larger capacity drives? Can I just replace them one at a time until the RAID rebuilds and then run a partition program to expand to the full capacity? (assuming replacing them one at a time would only utilize the 146GB of space on them?)

Any input is appreciated...thanks

Enkrypted
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[goombawaho]

You can do that, but during the rebuilding onto the new drive there is some risk that another drive might crap out due to all the IO activity (flogging the drive very hard). Also, check to see the best way to do it with your hardware. I'm thinking you might want to label the drive as "defunct" or "offline" in the RAID controller vs. just pulling the drive out and surprising the system.

Also, when you go to increase the disk partition, there is more risk in terms of everything going okay.

For me, personally, I'd do it this way:
Get an image backup or two of the server as it is
Shut it down
Pull all the drives out (labeling where they were in the server first)
Put the new hard drives in the system
Create the RAID and logical drives
Put image of server back onto new drives.

This way, you have the fail back position of putting the old drives back in. The controller should have the option of reading the RAID config from/off the drives and getting you back to where you were in case nothing works out. That plan, to me, is less risky. Yes, would have to be done in off work hours and would take more time to do.