PowerEdge R510 & H700 PERC - cannot extend a virtual disk

Question

So, I've currently got 5 X 2TB SAS drives as a Virtual disk in a Dell Poweredge R510 using a H700 RAID controller. That virtual disk is now almost out of space so I've bought 3 more Dell 2TB SAS disks and stuck them in the R510. Now, looking in the PERC config, the option to "Expand Volume" is greyed out. I can see the 3 new hard disks in there with the status of "Ready" but am unable to add them to my existing virtual drive.

Can someone tell me the steps I need to take to enable the expansion of the virtual disk? I'm almost out of space on this file server so speed is of the essence! I was under the assumption that it would have just been a case of putting the disks in and expanding the volume, clearly, simple isn't the way forward.

Thanks for any help you can offer.

Callahan.

theflash1932 · Answer

Do you have your current drive configured in a RAID 10?

Do you have multiple RAID arrays configured across the same set of disks (for example, one VD small enough for the OS and the rest for data)?

If the answer to either of the above is "yes", then you cannot simply add disks and expand the VD. If "no", how is everything set up currently?

Daniel My · Answer

Hello callahan22

What RAID level is the virtual disk?

There are a few things that could cause it to be grayed out. Here are a list of items to check on:

Make sure it is a RAID level that is capable of reconfigure
You may have to restart the OMSA services or the entire server to get it to work(DSM)
Make sure the controller driver and firmware are current
If anything on the controller is in a degraded state it will not work
Make sure the new HDDs are the same size or larger than the current drives. If it is a different brand drive they may be a few bytes smaller and this would cause them to not work.

If one of those items doesn't resolve it let me know.

Thanks

Daniel My · Answer

Do you have multiple RAID arrays configured across the same set of disks (for example, one VD small enough for the OS and the rest for data)? Good point, that is another one I forgot about.

Callahan22 · Answer

Hi Daniel/Flash,

Thanks for your comments. I currently have a RAID 6 across the 5 disks. It is configured as one single VD. On that VD I have partitioned it into 2 partitions, 1 for the OS and one for the data.

To answer your other questions:

1. I've checked and as far as the documentation I have read, a RAID6 should be expandable

2. I have restarted the server several times as I've thought of different things that could be causing the issue and then restarted to test my theory.

3. I am running the latest BIOS (V1.11.0) and the latest BIOS for the H700 (V12.10.4-0001)

4. The VD is not in a degraded state, everything is running fine.

5. The new HDDs are from Dell, have Dell stickers/logos on them and are of exactly the same size (1862.50GB) according to the RAID controller.

Does any of the above give any hints as to what the issue might be?

Thanks again for your help.

Daniel My · Answer

Everything sounds good. Are you trying to reconfigure directly through the controller BIOS or via OMSA? I haven't looked at the controller reconfigure option we started adding, but I heard that it can be buggy.

If you are using the controller then I would recommend loading into the OS and using OpenManage Server Administrator to perform the reconfigure.

Callahan22 · Answer

Just found this: support.dell.com/.../document Is this still the case? Do I have to add  them one by one?

Callahan22 · Answer

Directly through the bios. I'm in the process downloading what I think is the OMSA but the Dell support site seems a bit hit and miss at the moment so I'm not sure of the latest version thats available or where the iso is. If you could provide me with the link to the latest iso, that would be great.

Thanks again.

Daniel My · Answer

Here you go:

Windows: http://downloads.dell.com/FOLDER00333144M/1/OM-SrvAdmin-Dell-Web-WIN-7.0.0-4741_A00.exe

RHEL/CentOS: http://downloads.dell.com/FOLDER00308475M/1/OM-SrvAdmin-Dell-Web-LX-7.0.0-4614_A00.tar.gz

Thanks

Daniel My · Answer

Just found this: support.dell.com/.../document Is this still the case? Do I have to add  them one by one? No, that is in reference to our old SCSI controllers. You can add multiple drives at once now.

Callahan22 · Answer

@Flash, yes to all the above! :-)

@Daniel - thanks for the link, found a newer one almost as soon as I posted my question! - www.dell.com/.../InitiateSingleFileDownload

Will head back into work tomorrow and install the OMSA on the file server and see what I can come up with without using the bios.

Thanks both for your time and input on this. Much apprieciated.

theflash1932 · Answer

Just to be clear ... you are running a 64-bit version of 2008 (or later), installed on a GPT disk in UEFI mode, correct?  Because, with 5x2TB disks in a RAID 6, your 'disk' size would be 6TB, which could only be done according to the specs above.  Just want to be sure we are talking about an expandable array here ... sorry if you were sure of what was on there :)

Callahan22 · Answer

So, just remoted into my file server as the curiosity was too great and installed OMSA. Much much simpler! Drives added and the state reads "Reconstructing" so it looks like I'm in business. Will keep an eye on it and with any luck I'll be able to increase the volume size in a few days.

Thanks for all your help on this, was starting to think I'd have to create an extra VD.

Daniel My · Answer

Glad to hear that it is resolved. I'm sure with a few more firmware updates we will get the controller BIOS to be more functional with the reconstructs. Have a great weekend!

theflash1932 · Answer

Glad you got it going ... there was really no reason it shouldn't work.  I didn't know plans were in the works to add this functionality in the controller BIOS ... sounds like it should still be avoided for the time being :)

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PowerEdge R510 & H700 PERC - cannot extend a virtual disk

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