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December 16th, 2015 06:00
Adding Drives to PowerEdge R710 RAID
We have a PowerEdge R710 running a RAID1/RAID5 configuration.
- PERC 6/i SAS Raid Controller with 2x4 internal connectors.
- RAID1 is made up of (2) 146GB 15K 2.5" SAS drives.
- RAID5 is made up of (3) 500GB 7.2K Near-Line 2.5" SAS drives.
- (3) empty drive slots are available.
The server is running VMware ESXi v5.0.0. We've nearly maxed out storage so I need to add storage. I'm not sure what options I have to do this. These are the options I hope are possible.
- Add (3) 500GB drives the same as the currently installed drives and expand the RAID5.
- Add (3) 500GB drives the same as the currently installed drives and create a 2nd RAID5.
- Add (3) 1 or 2 TB 7.2K Near-Line 2.5" SAS drives and create a 2nd RAID5.
Can the PERC6/i controller support another RAID5?
theflash1932
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December 16th, 2015 08:00
These are all possible.
bhartung
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December 16th, 2015 08:00
That's great to hear.
If I chose to expand the existing RAID5, could that be done in the RAID controller app without losing data?
theflash1932
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December 16th, 2015 08:00
It can be done live, without data loss, but it cannot be done in the CTRL-R utility. You will need to use the OMSA VIB (if installed) or boot to an OMSA Live disc to initiate the reconfigure.
bhartung
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December 16th, 2015 10:00
I was able to locate the OMSA VIB for ESXi v5.0.
I tried to find reference to the OMSA Live disc but couldn't find any. Checking the downloads for my service tag, I found "Dell OpenManage Server Administrator Managed Node(windows - 64 bit) v.8.2". Do these downloads contain the Live disc option on them?
Also, do I need to use an older version of OMSA to support the Perc6/i?
theflash1932
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December 16th, 2015 10:00
OMSA Live was, for years, a handy but unofficial tool. It is now part of the suite of support tools and is now called Support Live Image:
http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/Drivers/DriversDetails?driverId=CWF92
OMSA Managed Node is the extensive Windows version of the management VIB.
All modern versions of OMSA (2008 and later) will support the PERC 6.
If you install the VIB, you should be able to do it (not sure about a reboot though). It will degrade the performance during the reconfigure, so you'll want to plan accordingly.