I don't remember the process taking very long in the Dell boxes we did, but to each their own. I would not expect it to take more than a few hours. The diskpart of it is near instant. A few CPU cycles and some HDD activity and its done.
From: David Mazzaccaro [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, March 04, 2008 8:40 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: new hard drives in proliant Thank you very much for confirming. I will have the previous night's backup tape to recover from in the even that I need to. Any idea how long it can take to expand the array? Each 300GB drive I installed took 30 minutes to rebuild the array to include the new drive. Which I thought was very quick. - Dave ________________________________ From: Greg Olson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, March 03, 2008 10:37 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: new hard drives in proliant Agreed. I've done it on HP hardware this way for many years (Solid backup is also key to have ready, just in case). After replacing each disk one at a time, in the end you'll have your disks exactly as you described. Run the disk expansion utility in the HP software, and after it completes, you'll have a nice big volume. Then in Windows you run the diskpart command as Sean stated below and it will expand the volume to fill the free space, giving you the extra room you need. Keep a solid backup though just in case. -Greg From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, March 03, 2008 5:28 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: new hard drives in proliant I am sorry, but if the card supports expansion that is a perfectly legit way to expand a raid card. I have done it in the neighborhood of 20 or 30 times.. Now if the card doesn't support it..Well like you said, "This is where the counsel of solid backups is key :o)" On a side not, better make sure your counsel is good before you try any raid based operations. Greg From: Louis, Joe [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, March 03, 2008 10:37 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: new hard drives in proliant If it's just data and no program files or services, what has worked for me is pulling the data RAID all at once when the server is off. Rebuilding the data array with the Proliant disc. And restoring the data on the new array with larger drives. The array is already built and matched on the card. You're not going to be able to expand the array by replacing one drive at a time. YMMV This is where the counsel of solid backups is key :o) ________________________________ From: David Mazzaccaro [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, March 03, 2008 8:27 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: new hard drives in proliant Thanks for the reply. Yes, I had (4) 72GB drives in a RAID5, I replaced one at a time with 300GB drives. The array doesn't change, so it is only using 72GB of each drive. This array only contains data. There is a separate RAID1 which Windows 2003 server is installed on. ________________________________ From: Louis, Joe [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, February 29, 2008 5:47 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: new hard drives in proliant David, I'm not sure that what you are planning is going to work. I could be all wet, but I think the Proliant software will expand if you have free space on the volume. Your array sounds like it was already maxed when it was originally built on the old drives. If I am understanding what you are saying, you replaced raid members that were 72gb with 300gb drives? When you added the 300gb drive (one at a time) and the array rebuilt it, it did so as though it was a 72gb drive. That isn't going to give you more space. Does this array also hold the OS? ________________________________ From: Sean Martin [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, February 29, 2008 5:31 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: new hard drives in proliant It's been awhile since I've worked with HP/Compaq Hardware, but yes, that sounds about right. Once the array has been expanded you'll want to use diskpart to expand the volume. cmd diskpart list volume select volume x (x = the number of the volume you want to expand) expand exit - Sean On 2/29/08, David Mazzaccaro <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: I (successfully) replaced all 4 (72GB) hard drives in a proliant server w/ 4 (300GB) drives. I replaced one drive at a time over the course of a week. Everything is working great, the Raid 5 array is only using them as 72GB drives. I realize this is exactly as design. So, Now I would like to utilize the extra 200GB on each drive. I believe this is called expanding the array? Not sure where to go from here... The array configuration utility has an option to do this, so that shouldn't be a problem? After that, I assume I have to expand the logical drive to utilize the new space, and then somehow tell Windows to expand drive? Thanks. ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm> ~
