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lpham73

5 Posts

143628

August 30th, 2007 01:00

Add new hard drive into array

I currently have Dell PowerEdge 2600 and I need to add another hard disk into array5.  How do I do this?  Thanks, Linh.

DELL-GaryS

777 Posts

August 30th, 2007 15:00

Hi lpham73,
 
Read this thread
 
I've covered several issues there that will apply to your situation.
 
Regards,
Dell-GaryS


Message Edited by DELL-GaryS on 08-30-2007 11:31 AM

lpham73

5 Posts

September 1st, 2007 21:00

Thanks Gary!  After reading all the information, I am more confused than ever!  Could you please give me step by step guidelines?  I have a PowerEdge 2600, Perc4Di.  I am supposed to add another 146GB into Array Group 0 -- Virtual Disk 0...
 
Thanks!!
Linh.

DELL-GaryS

777 Posts

September 3rd, 2007 13:00

 
Linh,
 
Here is the manual, 

<ADMIN NOTE: Broken link has been removed from this post by Dell>

 
  You go to the reconstruct menu, select the RAID 5, then you add the new drive and press enter, and the reconstruction will start. Reboot after it's complete and go to disk management, you'll see some new unused space on the hard drive, you may either create a new drive letter or extend your partition other than C:.
 
Regards,
Dell-GaryS
 
Reconstructing Logical Drives: RAID Level Migration and Online Capacity Expansion

A reconstruction occurs when you change the RAID level of an array or add a physical drive to an existing array. RAID level migration changes the array from one RAID level to another. Online capacity expansion is the addition of hard disk drives to increase storage capacity. You can perform a reconstruction while the system continues to run, without having to reboot. This avoids downtime and keeps data available to users.

NOTE: After you start the reconstruct process, you must wait until it is complete. Do not reboot, cancel, or exit until the reconstruction is complete. NOTE: When performing a RAID level migration or an online capacity expansion, a fictional disk may appear in the Windows Disk Management, Dell OpenManage Array Manager, or Dell OpenManage Storage Services application, if the system is rebooted before the process is finished. This disk can be ignored and will disappear once the RAID level migration or online capacity expansion is complete.

Performing a RAID level migration on a clustered system will change the system to non-clustered mode, causing a cluster mismatch error if the system is rebooted.

NOTE: An automatic drive rebuild will not start if you replace a drive during a RAID level migration or an online capacity expansion. The rebuild must be started manually after the expansion or migration procedure is complete.

Perform the following steps to reconstruct a drive:

  1. Move the arrow key to highlight Reconstruct on the Management Menu.

  2. Press .

A window entitled "Reconstructables" displays. This contains the logical drives that can be reconstructed. You can press to view logical drive information or to select the reconstruct option.

  1. Press .

The next reconstruction window displays. The options on this window are to select or deselect a drive, to open the reconstruct menu, and to display logical drive information.

  1. Press to open the reconstruct menu.

The menu items are RAID level, stripe size, and reconstruct.

  1. To change the RAID level, select RAID with the arrow key, press and select a RAID level from the list that displays.

  2. Select Reconstruct and press to reconstruct the logical drive.

You are prompted to start the reconstruction. A progress bar for the reconstruction displays.

lpham73

5 Posts

September 6th, 2007 17:00

Thanks Gary.  Reconstruction doesn't wipe out any data on the existing disk, does it?
 

DELL-GaryS

777 Posts

September 6th, 2007 17:00

Hi Linh,
 
  No. Reconstruction is supposed to be a safe operation. That being said, there is always a chance of hardware failures, so back up all data and the machine state (registry) review the backup logs and repair or replace any files that do not back up. You might even run consistency checks to find and remap any media errors. In fact you should do this last bit on a set schedule so that if you DO have a drive fail, you are less likely to have media errors that have not been remapped on one or more of the drives that are still online. (That would be a BAD THING, having media errors on your online drives when you have a drive fail).
 
Regards,
Dell-Garys

lpham73

5 Posts

September 6th, 2007 17:00

Do you know how long the process takes to complete as I want to extend to another 146GB.  How do I prevent the media errors or run the consistency checks?  Can users still access to server for other activity on different disks?
 
 

DELL-GaryS

777 Posts

September 6th, 2007 17:00

Linh,
 
  How long it takes depends on the I/O processing load you have the system under and the size of the reconstruction. I've had reconstructions take over 12 hours. Yes users can access the drives (any, not just ones not involved with reconstruction), the more user traffic, the slower the reconstruction.
 
  No you cannot prevent media errors, all you can do is detect them and remap them. The hard drives have a couple of % of total capacity reserved for such remapping. The SMART monitoring F/W on the drives counts the errors and triggers an alert when the error count is high enough to indicate that the drive needs to be replaced.
 
  From the manual, objects - logical drive menu lets you start a consistancy check on a per logical drive basis.
 
Regards,
Dell-GaryS
 
 


Message Edited by DELL-GaryS on 09-06-2007 01:45 PM

greg2124

4 Posts

February 21st, 2008 18:00

Hi Gary,

I have a problem with using free space of a logical raid disk after online capacity expansion.
The server is Dell PowerEdge 2950, with installed Windows 2003 32-bit version.
Initially it had 4 x 750GB Raid5 configuration.
Few days ago I added 2 new 750GB drives and used online capacity expansion to increase the Raid 5 volume size.
According to Open Manager volume has been resized to 3.4TB, Windows shows plenty of free unpartitioned disk space in the Disk Management.
But I can not create new logical disk in Windows, because New Partition menu in Windows Disk Management is greyed out. Convert to Dynamic Disk menu is also greyed out in Disk Management.
When I tried to run command line diskpart utility to convert to a dynamic disk I got the "Diskpart cannot convert MBR disks larger than 2TB to dynamic." error. 
We have an important information on this server and it is not possible to loose it, therefore we can't create/reinstall everything from scratch and need a solution how it can be done without data lost.

What is the procedure to create new disk in Windows using existing free space after online capacity expansion in my case?

DELL-GaryS

777 Posts

February 21st, 2008 19:00

Hi Greg2124,

 

  As I understand it, this is a limitation of the MBR table under NTFS, you can use dispart to convert to a GUID partition table see the "convert GPT" command documentation in diskpart's manuals.

 

Ref kb/919117  kb/302873

 

Regards,

Dell-GaryS

pcmeiners

4 Operator

 • 

1.8K Posts

February 21st, 2008 19:00

Greg...

For the next time, would be best to run a manually started Patrol Reads along with a CC before the expansion. A Consistency Check checks only the parity info, Patrols Reads check the disk surface for errors. The greatest danger of array loss comes during a rebuild, as all the sectors are checked by the adapter. During normal use the adapter does NOT check sectors which do not contain data, so errors can build up in unused areas of the disk. If multiple errors build up, it is a good chance the raid adapter will fail the array in the rebuild process. With an array this size make sure Patrol reads run often, either automatically or manually scheduled.

 

DELL-GaryS

777 Posts

February 22nd, 2008 15:00

Hi Greg2124,

 

  Not to my knowledge, it appears that you're going to need some down time to do a rebuild of the server.

 

Regards,

Dell-GaryS

greg2124

4 Posts

February 22nd, 2008 15:00

Hi Gary,

Thank you for your reply,
According to notes in  http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsServer/en/library/4f5cdfda-e6a6-42e6-af89-a75f8ec7e6f91033.mspx?mfr=true
it's not possible to convert MBR to a GUID without deleting all partitions on the drive:

"- You can change a disk from MBR to GPT as long as the disk does not contain any partitions or volumes."

Is there any way to split expanded 3.4TB raid volume in 2 drives 2TB and 1.4TB in the Perc 5/i raid controller management interface without loosing all data on the current raid drive, where only first 2TB are used by Windows and other 1.4TB at the end of raid5 volume are free?
If yes, what's the procedure for doing this?

greg2124

4 Posts

February 22nd, 2008 16:00

Hi Gary,

Do you know any Dell or 3rd party software tool which can convert MBR to GPT without loosing the data on the disk?

F1_Champ

22 Posts

March 14th, 2008 13:00

Is there a way to view the Process % of the reconstruction process? We have added 2 extra drives to a RAID5 array 20 hours ago and it is still running.

Thanks. 

DELL-GaryS

777 Posts

March 14th, 2008 15:00

Hi F1-Champ,

 

Short answer, yes.

 

Which controller and which RAID management utility, and how much other I/O still on the system, and what size and total number of drives and which RAID level? We should be able to esitmate time to completion with that info.

 

Regards,

Dell-GaryS

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