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241403
May 28th, 2014 22:00
Adding Physical Disk to Server
Here's my situation and I'm hoping you can help. I am tasked with upgrading one of our PowerEdge R520's with a new hard drive. The server itself is a simple file server and has 4 2TB drives in a raid 5 array. The raid controller we have is a Perc H710. Seeing as how there is client data currently on the server, and it's used on a weekly basis, up-time and keeping the data intact/untouched is very important. The only way I see myself being able to incorporate that new hard drive, is if I create a virtual disk in OSMA. My issues is that there currently isn't a virtual disk so re-configuring isn't an option. If I create a virtual disk, do you see it causing any issues with the current raid configuration? I am almost positive I am just over-reacting here as I've never heard of software raid being able to re-initialize a raid configuration while the OS is in use. That must be done using the raid utility during bootup. Once the virtual disk is created, I should have no issues adding that additional hard drive. Should the virtual disk be created before I install the new hard drive or does it really matter? Any help will be greatly appreciated.
Also, OSMA can see the disk that isn't part of the array and has it labeled as ready, the rest are online. Currently all I can do using OSMA is assign the drive as a hot spare. While that is useful, I need to be able to use the drive for storage. Again, any help will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.
theflash1932
9 Legend
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16.3K Posts
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May 29th, 2014 10:00
You have multiple RAID arrays configured across the same set of disks. This is called "slicing". Online Capacity Expansion does NOT work on sliced arrays. This is most often done to avoid the 2TB limitation on boot disks and/or BIOS-enabled systems.
So, if you wanted to add drives to your existing RAID 5, you'd have only two options: 1) delete VD's 1, 2, and 3, expand through Reconfigure, then recreate your other VD's again; or 2) backup data, wipe out all VD's create new VD(s), restore data to larger VD.
Given your setup, sounds like it will be simpler for you to simply add the new disk as its own VD (1-disk RAID 0).
theflash1932
9 Legend
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16.3K Posts
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May 28th, 2014 22:00
You have two options:
1) Add/incorporate the new disk into the existing RAID 5. This can be done while online, without affecting the existing data. This is done through OMSA - Storage, PERC, Virtual Disks, and Reconfigure from the dropdown menu of Available Tasks for the RAID 5. There will be a slight performance degradation during the reconfigure process - similar to that of a disk rebuild.
2) Create a new VD with the new disk. This can be done in the CTRL-R utility or through OMSA - Storage, PERC, Information/Configuration (link at top of page), Create/New (or use the new/create VD wizard link on the Virtual Disks page). The only valid RAID configuration for a single disk is RAID 0 (the PERC does NOT support non-RAID, so it must be configured in "a" RAID array before its space can be used by the OS.
woropeza
3 Posts
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May 29th, 2014 06:00
Just so I have this clear, option 1 is what I could do if I already had a virtual disk set up in OSMA. Since I don't, I can either create a new raid 0 array in the raid controller, or use OSMA to create a new raid for that one disk. Either way, I won't be able to add it to my current Raid 5 array correct?
theflash1932
9 Legend
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16.3K Posts
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May 29th, 2014 07:00
No, that's not what I said.
You CAN use OMSA or the RAID controller to set up the lone disk as a RAID 0, but it doesn't sound like that is what you want to do,
OR
You CAN use OMSA to ADD the new disk to your EXISTING RAID 5. Your RAID 5 IS a Virtual Disk, so you are simply taking advantage of a built-in feature of the controller, called Online Capacity Expansion, whereby you expand the size of a Virtual Disk (array) by adding a disk to it.
woropeza
3 Posts
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May 29th, 2014 10:00
So I checked OSMA again and I do in fact have a virtual disk setup. In fact, I have 4 virtual disks. This is my current Raid 5 array. If i'm understanding this correctly, I can run the virtual disk wizard for the new hard drive I have installed, and one it's finished, add it to my current raid 5 configuration. I have attached pictures just so you can have a visual.
Mompi
1 Message
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May 17th, 2017 15:00
all of these requires the server restart? or not?
I have kinda similar case, but i just need to add disks on a raid5 VD,
the additional drives shows "Foreign"...
theflash1932
9 Legend
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16.3K Posts
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May 18th, 2017 14:00
You should create a new question.
You must CLEAR the foreign configuration before you can do anything with the drives: OMSA, Storage, PERC, Information/Configuration, Foreign/Clear from dropdown menu of Available Tasks for the controller.