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176762
July 17th, 2014 11:00
Reconfigure Virtual Disk using OpenManage from RAID-0 to RAID-5
I apologize for the spacing. I'm having a little trouble with this forum editing my post.
My small company has had a T610 running for a few years with the following configuration:
T610 Server
Perc 6/i controller
4 physical disk 1TB
Virtual Disk 0 size 1,800 GB RAID-5
Virtual Disk 1 size 992 GB RAID-5
Virtual Disk 1 was running Exchange and everything else on VD 0.
Last weekend I had a punctured array failure due to a disk failure that corrupted the Windows SBS 2008 and could not recover. When I contacted Pro support and got a new disk, I was advised not to recreate the same Virtual Disks and to use just one.
The local tech and I were pretty stressed and used the Perc 6/I BIOS to recreate the exact setup. We then had to use Backup Exec 2010 to restore the data. Somehow we mistakenly selected RAID-0 instead of RAID-5 on the recreation of the two virtual disks.
So now I have the following configuration showing in OpenManage:
Virtual Disk 0 size 1,800 GB RAID-0
Virtual Disk 1 size 992 GB RAID-0
I called Dell and was giving the instructions in OpenManage on how to reconfigure a virtual disk by adding a physical disk and converting to RAID-5. My problem is reconfigure is not an option in the drop down menu, I'm being told, because I have two virtual disks that are striped.
I have the disk capacity to go to only 1 virtual disk since only Exchange is on the second one and I can move, then drop Virtual Disk 1. So my plan is:
Complete backup to tape.
Move Exchange off the drive sitting in Virtual Disk 1 to a drive on Virtual Disk 0.
Remove Virtual Disk 1.
Add a 5th physical HD.
I'm hoping at this point OpenManage will then give me the option in the drop down to Reconfigure Virtual Disk 0.
Will the option for Reconfigure in OpenManage show up after it sees only 1 Virtual Disk?
Daniel My
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6.2K Posts
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July 17th, 2014 15:00
Hello
Yes, the option to reconfigure should be available after you delete the second array off of the drives. The techs you spoke with are correct that you cannot reconfigure a sliced array.
I know that you just went through the process of reinstalling and restoring from backup, but it may be best that you do that again. Let me explain why your array was configured that way, and why you may need to reinstall again.
There are limitations on the partition. In order to create a partition larger than 2TB it needs to be GPT. In order to boot from a GPT partition the system board needs to be set to UEFI mode. The problem you will run into by trying to create one large RAID 5 is that you will not be able to use more than 2TB of it. You will be creating a new sliced array to use the additional space.
If the system board is already set to UEFI mode then you should be able to convert the partition to GPT and expand as necessary to accommodate the space. If you installed the OS with the system board set to MBR then changing to UEFI and converting to GPT will likely cause the OS to be unstable if you are able to boot to it at all.
I think you should save yourself a lot of hassle and do this upgrade properly. I know it will be a lot more time consuming to start over, but you should set the boot mode to UEFI, delete both RAID 0's, create the new large RAID 5, reinstall the OS, and then restore from backup.
Doing it properly now will likely save you a lot of time.
Thanks