Adding Drives to RAID Config ?

Question

I have a Dell R510 with 4 Drives configured with RAID 5 being used with vSphere 5.5 - ESXi

I have 2 open slots in the R510 server.

Is it possible to insert two new drives and initialize them to make storage available to ESXi 5.5 without disturbing the RAID 5 configuration currently defined.

thanks

theflash1932 · Accepted Answer

RAID 5 requires a minimum of 3 drives.

You need only configure a new VD - be sure to check the Advanced and Initialize boxes during creation.

Insert the drives HOT (do not power down to insert them), then reboot to the CTRL-R utility.

theflash1932 · Accepted Answer

The two drives should match each other, but they do not have to match the other drives in the system.

theflash1932 · Accepted Answer

Any RAID. 1. Insert disks 'hot', configure RAID. RAID arrays (virtual disks) are COMPLETELY separate. What happens to one does not affect the other(s). 2. NEVER power off a server to introduce a hot-swappable drive. That goes for replacement drives AND drives to create a new array. The ONLY time you ever power off the system to introduce hot-swappable drives is if you are replacing the controller or moving an entire RAID array from another system. 3. If you have a PERC 5/6//H7x0, you can add drives to an array, essentially converting a 2-disk RAID 1 to a 3-disk RAID 5 - live and without affecting the data.

theflash1932 · Answer

Yes. Depending on your RAID controller, you will likely need to configure the new disks in a RAID array and initialize it before it can be seen by ESXi.

SJNAPL · Answer

I am pretty sure it is a PERC/6i controller

theflash1932 · Answer

Yep, you will need to configure RAID before ESXi can see the storage - the PERC 6 does not support non-RAID.

SJNAPL · Answer

ok,

so this can be done as in ,,

shutdown the esxi server,

install 2 new drives,

boot up into the RAID utility (ctrl r),
configure new VD or Group (not sure of the order),

initialize the RAID (mirror or stripe - can't do RAID5 - not enough drives?)

reboot

theflash1932 · Answer

Try the Storage forum: http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/storage/

SJNAPL · Answer

ok,,, thanks on another note, would you happen to know what Dell forum could answer a question about configuring storage SANS with a Dell and Cisco switch?

SJNAPL · Answer

thanks also, if I install two new drives to add more storage foe ESXi, I assume the drives would have to be the same type (speed, Size)?

commandoe · Answer

theflash1932 - does this go for Raid 1 also? I have a similar task of adding 2 additional hard drives (exactly as the original 2) to a PERC H310 for additional space.

1. Whats a way of doing this without losing my current data?

2. Would Hot swap work, or is that only for replacing a bad hard drive in a current configuration?

3. Could I go to Raid 5, but would that mean losing all my data on my Raid 1 configuration?

commandoe · Answer

So I did that, and configured the 2 new drives as Raid 1!  However, can you explain why the first logical/basic (C:,D:) boot drive shows 1 physical drive, when I know its a raid 1 made up of 2 physical drives!  But the ones I just created were made into dynamic drives and shows both physical drives under disk management as E:?

theflash1932 · Answer

Can you post a screenshot of Disk Management?

SJNAPL · Answer

Follow up to the RAID question I posted on the on R510.

i have 4 open slots. The first 4 disk are in RAID5 for the ESXi Datastore.

I was thinking a max of 2-4 TB for the new config.

If I go RAID 5, that is (3) 1 TB drives and 1 TB Hot Spare.

Any reason not to go this route?

thanks

PowerEdge HDD/SCSI/RAID

Adding Drives to RAID Config ?

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