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Upgrade disk space RAID 5 with H310 Controller
Hi, I have a Poweredge T320 server with an H310 controller in RAID 5 with three 500gb disks. I have room to add one more 500gb drive to the array, but would like to get more disk space. With the H310 controller, can I shutdown the server, replace 1 500gb drive in the array with a 1TB drive, start the server and let the array rebuild, and use all of the 1TB? If I do this replacement individually with all 3 drives, would it fully use the 1TB on each of the 3 drives? Or do I need to swap out all the drives and restore all data from backup onto the new array with 3 1TB drives? Thank you for any suggestions.
DELL-Daniel My
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November 1st, 2014 16:00
Hello
Yes, but not in the same RAID array. You would have to create a new RAID array with that space before the operating system could see it. You would be creating a second array on that drive. Because it would be the only available drive you would have to create a single drive RAID 0. The operating system would see it as a different drive.
Yes, but you would still have to create a new RAID array as mentioned above. If you replaced all three drives larger drives you would have more options, such as a RAID 5 with the available space across all drives.
That would be the best method for a production system.
There is one other option. If you were to replace all of the drives with larger drives then you could reconfigure the array. If there is available space on each drive then in the reconfigure wizard you will have a button for Expand Capacity. This will allow you to increase the size of the array to include the additional space. After that has been done you will need to either create new partitions or extend an existing partition within the operating system to use that new space.
Thanks
DELL-Daniel My
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November 1st, 2014 17:00
Yes, that is correct except for the last part. I do not believe you can do this through the CTL R BIOS. I'm quite certain you must perform the reconfigure using OpenManage Server Administrator from within an operating system.
Thanks
TheTechGuide
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November 1st, 2014 17:00
Thanks Dell-Daniel. I will look more into your "other option." Of course I will do 2 bare metal backups before proceeding! It sounds like I can replace each drive individually with a 1Tb drive and let each of the 3 drives rebuild. And then in the CTRL-R RAID options on bootup, I can reconfigure the array and Expand Capacity after all three larger 1TB drives are in the array?
TheTechGuide
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November 9th, 2014 07:00
Hi, Dell-Daniel, thanks for the help thus far. I have the replaced the drives with 1TB drives and a rebuild occurred successfully after each drive was replaced. So now I have an array using 500Gb of each 1Tb hard drive and extra space unused space on each of the replaced drives. For others who might want to know the steps, this is what I did. I powered the server off, replaced one drive, powered on, used the bootup CTRL-R RAID configuration. The Array would show as degraded with a new non-RAID member. Using the menu choices available for the new disk, I selected to make the new disk a RAID disk, you will see a message that any data on the disk will be lost (which is OK, this is a new disk). This step happens quickly. Then the only other choice on the menu for the new disk is to Assign a "global hot spare". So I assigned the disk as a global hot spare. It starts rebuilding. Once I see that it starts rebuilding, I exit the RAID controller menu. The server reboots and displays some messages about the new RAID configuration being saved, etc. It takes the server a little longer than usual to reboot, but it reboots into Windows Server 2008. When I went into OSMA, it would show the new disk as rebuilding. The rebuild would take about 5 hours.
Can you give me some more specifics on the menu and choices in OSMA to expand the array now to use the entire new space? In OSMA, under Storage, PERC H310 Adapter, Virtual Disks, I can select Virtual Disk 0 (there is only this 1 virtual disk), and then there are several available tasks:
Reconfigure, Delete, Check Consistency, Assign/Unassign hot spare, rename, change policy, slow initialize, fast initialize, and replace member disk.
I assume it is under Reconfigure, but wanted to check on what I should expect once I start down one of these menus since I haven't expanded an array before?
Of course will do full backups and test them first before proceeding.
Thank you!
DELL-Daniel My
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November 9th, 2014 09:00
Yes, it is the reconfigure option. When you select reconfigure it will open the reconfiguration wizard. On one of the first screens of the wizard there will be an Expand Capacity button at the bottom of the menu.
TheTechGuide
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November 9th, 2014 19:00
So I ran into a problem. There are 4 disks in the system in the array. When I replaced disk 0 with the new disk, I was able to enter CTRL-R and select the disk and then add it to the array just as I did successfully with the other disks. When I rebooted, it said that it saved the RAID configuration. But the system will not boot to the OS. I get a nasty looking red screen that says "A system restart is required.
The system detected an exception during the UEFI pre-boot environment.
Press ENTER on the serial console (@115200 8-N-1) for detailed exception info."
System will not boot. The replaced disk 0 now says "foreign" in the RAID configuration, but has no options for me to do anything with it.
I saw this post [View:] I doublechecked all the cables to make sure I didn't disconnect anything in the server. This server (not my choice) is setup so that the OS (on a C: drive) and the data (a D: partition) are all part of this one 4 disk RAID 5 array.
Any suggestions on fixing this problem? Thank you!
TheTechGuide
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November 9th, 2014 20:00
Also I am not able to get into F2 or F11. Upon startup, the server I can press the F2 of F11 keys, and in the upper, right corner, it will say "entering setup" , etc. But it will never get to those options. It goes through CTRL-S and CTRL-R and then says Initializing firmware, and ends up right back at the above-mentioned red screen with the UEFI pre-boot environment error.
DELL-Daniel My
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November 15th, 2014 09:00
Remove the drive you just added and check to see if you can enter the menus. If you can then swap it out with another drive and test again.
It may be an issue with that drive or a compatibility issue with all of the new drives you are trying to add. If it happens with all of the new drives then put in the old drive and test to see if you can get in the menus. If you cannot enter system setup with any of the new drives attached then it would appear the new drives are incompatible and causing a communication issue on the PERC.
Thanks