Virtual Disk Service HP ML350 G5 (RAID)

[saif]

Dear Experts,

I installed RAID 5 with 3 hardrives and OS is Windows 2003 Server R2 Enterprise Edition. Now i want to add 2 more Hard Disks. Do i need to reconfigure to RAID ? or there is any possibility to add new drives into RAID without reinstalling OS ?

I was exploring Windows Resoursce Kit and tried to use diskraid.exe. I thought this utility may help me but when i run this utility i got message i.e.

"Diskraid was unable to find any VDS hardware providers installed on this computer.At least one VDS hardware provider must be installed for diskraid to be functional.Please check the VDS hardware provider installation."

How can i install VDS? and does it help me to in adding new hard drives to the existing RAID

Thanks Saif ur Rab

 

[theravager]

If you are using software raid i believe theres nothing you can do.

As to re striping extra disks in with hardware it depends on the controller card. The generic cards that hp hardware comes with i don't believe have this functionality.

I suspect you will have to do the old backup, reconfig and restore, i recommend ghosting the system to a usb drive and then back or a network share if you need it done quick and easy.

Off memory VDS is new style of disk management implemented in R2 and above primarily faced at SAN/NAS/iScsi style disk. Basically its a plugin that allows windows to manage the external disks instead of supplier tools. I can't see it catching on with manufacturers but who knows.

 

[TheLad]

Just insert the extra disks into the server and using the ACU add the new disks into the array - it really is as simple as that. Start by looking on Page 24 of the attached document:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c00709035/c00709035.pdf

As always, ensure you have a successful backup prior to adding the disks and extending the array, and my advice would be to perform the procedure when the server is less busy. The restriping of the disks may take a couple of hours. Once the restriping has completed, you will have to extend your OS partitions as required (DISKPART.EXE should work for non System drives)

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