Adding Drives to T-610 Raid 5 Array

Question

We just recovered from a failed drive on the Raid Array and had to rebuil the array after some damage to the array. Put in a replacement 450GB/15K RPM drive, and ordered 4 more (1 hot spare, 3 to add to the array. The caddies were the wrong ones, so could not install the drives when I rebuilt the array, and restored my backups. Now, all is stable, drives are working well. But, now I have 4 drives to add (1 hot spare, 3 storage) Dell says 3-5 GB per GB, so, adding 1350 GB of store, means 22 hours hours minimum. The question I have, after I have done that, I am going to show 1.3TB un-partitioned space, yes? With Server 2008R2, I can partition it, and then extend my D (Data) partition to include this drive space, yes? Anything I need to know about it, be aware of? Of course, I will do a nice back-up (or two) first. Guidance? Pitfalls? Thanks

theflash1932 · Answer

What is your boot mode set to in the BIOS? UEFI or BIOS?

If it is set to BIOS, you will only have about 1100GB of Unpartitioned Space; you won't be able to use the last ~250GB of space. Reason:

Every Virtual Disk (VD, array) is seen by the OS as a separate "disk" in Disk Management.
Windows cannot use a "disk" larger then 2TB unless it has been converted to GPT (data-destructive).
Windows cannot BOOT to a GPT disk, unless the OS was INSTALLED on a UEFI-enabled system.
The T610 is capable of UEFI, but it would not have been enabled by default; if the OS came installed from Dell, it would depend on how you ordered it, but without specifying otherwise, it would not have been enabled if your boot "disk" was less than 2TB.

So, if you can live without that extra 250GB, then go for it. If you need all the space, you'll need to backup the data using software capable of backing up MBR/BIOS and restoring to GPT/UEFI. Another option would be to add the 450GB drives as a separate VD, but this will only give you around 900GB of usable space on the new "disk".

PowerEdge HDD/SCSI/RAID

Was this post helpful?