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RAID5 drive addtion problem

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by epait

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I tried to add space to an existing RAID5 array this weekend on a Windows 2000 SP4 terminal server used for all apps and data for a CPA firm. My server is a Dell Poweredge 2500 using a Perc2 RAID contorller and Dell Open Manage ARRAY software. The orginal configuration was 4 x36GB drives RAID5...I added 2X36GB whchi should have given me at least 70GB of free space. Dell directed me how to add a drive one at a time via the OPen Manage software. Once the drives were installed I opened the Open Manager Array Console..clicked on virtual drives and check to add each drive one at a time. The problem was that the size did not chnage from 104GB to 173GB Max so I eneded up with the same amount of data striped across 6 drives..The server is low on the D partion..only 2.5 GB free with 50 users. Now when you view virtual drives there is 13GB unallocated on each drive that I can't access. The RAID5 array contains my OS also. I am in communication with Dell to resolve but wanted to check here also.

thanks,
Rob

4 replies

by the_fixer

I have done this on on a Dell server. The only difference is that I had a PERC 4/DI and an external shed. I added drives to the shed and had the same issue. Dell told me I had to re-create the logical partition and restore from tape. I know this is not what you want to hear. Hopefully Dell has come up with a better solution.

Mike

by blackcurrant

Hi

My experience with this was with a Dell PowerEdge 2400 with Perc2. When I added storage I used the SCSI select utility that appears during POST. The utility recognised the new container and I then formatted the drive. It was not until the drive drive had been formatted that the storage became available.

Has your extra storage been formatted? Maybe that is why it is not visible.

Good luck

by winterfrost

Are you looking in Explorer or Disk Management? Windows will not automatically expand the partition to take up the additional space just because you expand the RAID array.

If the array in question is used for the system/boot partition, you can't expand the partition without using some sort of 3rd-party utility like Partition Magic or backing up, re-installing, and restoring from tape.

If this is just a data disk, you could convert the disk (array) to a Dynamic disk, then extend the existing partition into the new space which Disk Manager should now see.

by mictlantecuttli

Hi,

I have found that its more reliable to try to reconstruct
a RAID5 in the PERC BIOS. It is worth mentioning though
that it sounds like something has gone wrong with the
procedure. If you have a RAID5 accross 6 HDDs the
controller will use the equvalent of 2HDDs for parity
information in case of failure. 3x36GB HDDs = 72GB
of storage and 36GB of parity information, so if
the 2 new drives rebuild successfully you would
only have a maximum of 144GB of storage (although
this would be reduced by the installation and
diagnostic partitions on the server if you have
used the Dell installation media).

I would reccommend purchasing HDDs with a higher capacity then trying Migrate Easy from Acronis software.
It costs next to nothing and it will copy the contents
of a RAID5 onto a RAID0, automatically resize the partitions
and reconfigure the boot.ini file to ensure that it is
still bootable. You can then blow away the RAID5
and recreate it with access to all the storage space on the new disks.

To top this off Migrate Easy will copy the data back
accross, resize the partitions and reconfigure the
boot.ini file and if the RAID0 is on one HDD it will
assign it as a hotspare to the new larger RAID5.

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