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Upgrade hard disks in NT server

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I have existing hard disks configured under one array (RAID5) with two logical drives (C & D). I wanted to add in additional hard disks to create another array (RAID5) with one logical drive (E). Question is can I merge drive D and E into one volume without disturbing the data (backup & restore)? Trying to minimise downtime cos the data is about 70GB. Same goes with server running Novell OS.

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Will all the disks to be on the same controller? If so, then you will have to add those disks to the array and create a new logical drive.

Otherwise, you will be adding a new disk array controller card, then creating the disk array and then creating the logical partitions.

You most likely can merge the partitions, but you will need to adjust the boot.ini to tell the system where the boot partition is. And this will most likely render your DR plan moot, since recovering a non-existent partition is rather meaningless.

To save yourself all this trouble, I’d recommend a new disk array and/or small SAN and move data to that.

The Novell server, depending on the version, would have about the same answer. The disk arrays are most likely hardware based and not software based.

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New hard disks will be added using the same controller. New array will be created and logical drive created too. For example, existing drives are C: (OS) and D: (data), new drive will be E: (empty). Now I want to merge drive D: and E: without losing any data. Is that posible under Winnt server 4.0 environment? If yes, how to go about? I know it can be done in Novell OS.

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