We have a set of Compaq Proliant 1500r servers running NetWare 4.2 with SFT 3. The original HD's are 3 x 4.3 gig, we would like to replace them with 3 x 9.1 gig HD's. We have gotten conflicting advice from Compaq and Novell. Any one out there ever attempted this? We are looking for a way to do this without taking the network down completely if possible.
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I've never done this on SFTIII, just to warn you. You could replace a first disk, as if the 4 GB disk was defective, by a 9 GB disk, and let the system rebuild itself. ANd so on for the second, and the third. Allow enough time for the rebuild! You then end up with an unchanged RAID set of 3x4GB on 3x9GB disks. In other words, you'll have 3x4.5 GB unused space. Using CPQONLIN.NLM you can then use that unused space to create a second virtual drive. And on that drive, via LOAD INSTALL, you can create a partition, and use that space to add pieces to existing volumes, or create new volumes. Everything of this can be done on-line, but the creation of a new virtual disk (=expand the existing RAID set), will take a few hours, and cause some performance degration during that period.
Oh, and umm, take a GOOD backup first. If there happens to be a power-loss during the expansion of the RAID, you end up with nothing at all.
And when do you get that File not Found message? Because while swapping the disks one by one, it's purely Compaq's SMART controlling doing the work, there is no software involved at all. And later you can load CPQONLIN.NLM from a CD or from a download, if you like. So, are you sure this message comes from the disk things, and not from somewhere else?
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Changing HD's in a NW 4.2 SFT 3 server