Replacing SCSI Drives in RAID Array

Its possible although the software has to work on the type of disks. Some software does NOT like Dynamic disks. If Basic you will have more luck.

Check out this thread:
http://www.winntmag.com/Forums/messageview.cfm?catid=37&threadid=121963

just follow the RAID 5 mirrored volume failure recovery process e.g. replace the drive you want to, click the working partition in computer mgt choose add mirror to the replaced drive.

The problem you face is that RAID 5 requores teh drives (or at least the partitions on those drives) to be the same size. So, this means that you can't swap a 9GB drive out, replace it with an 18, and get 18GB of space - instead, the array would ask you to create a prtition on the 18GB drive to match the other 2 9GB ones.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,
Shawn

Replacing your existing R5 with 3 9.1Gb one at a time is a very tricky and sticky situation.
R5 only recognizes the HDD with smallest capacity. Placing an 18Gb HDD on yuor existing R5 will work but the RAID will only recognize it as 9.1 like the rest.

What will I do if I were you is that I will Backup the Data on tape, terminate the 9.1 R5, replace it with 3x18Gb HDDs, re-create the R5, then restore data on the newly configured R5.
This method is safer.

I believe COmpaq Proliant Servers comes with RAID MAnager. DOn't use 3rd party RAID configs as it may or may not work on a proprietary servers like COmpaq.

Good luck!

The RAID will use 9GB of the 18GB disk to replace the 9GB unit you swap out. You would wind up with no more space than you had before and you would have unused space on the disks.
I think a better solution would be to backup the RAID 5 array. Then shutdown the server, delete the array from the BIOS utility, replace the disks, redefine the array, boot up the system to normal, restore the array.

I suggest copying all the data off the RAID, replace all three drives with new disks (36Gb is minimum these days) and restore data back on. This is the safest method.