Increasing Storage capacity on a Perc 4/SC Array

Question

I have 1 PE 1600SC with a Perc 4/SC controller. It has five (5) Seagate ST373307LW 73 GB drives in a RAID 5 array.

I have one drive that shows indication of failing and may need to be replaced. Do I have to replace it with the same drive or can I replace it with a drive of the same interface but larger capacity (i.e. Seagate ST3146807LW 147GB drive)?

Thanks!

Z.

Message Edited by zoxxo on 02-10-2006 03:55 PM

zoxxo · Answer

Anyone?

hemerich · Answer

You can replace it with a larger capacity drive, and the array will only use the size of the others.

zoxxo · Answer

So what your saying is all of the drives in the array will be configured to the size of the smallest drive in the array.

I have 5 - 73GB drives in the array, which I hope to eventually replace with 146GB drives. I guess that when I finally get all 5 drives replaced, I'll have to back up the array, and reconfigure/reformat the array to get the greater disk capacity.

Thanks for the help!

Z.

hemerich · Answer

Yes. In fact I just did that on our Exchange server. C: (system) is on a mirrored set, and D: (programs & data) was on a set of 4 36GB disks configured as RAID 5. I turned off and disabled the Exchange services, backed up the D: drive on tape as simple files, replaced the drives with 4 147GB drives, recreated the array, formatted the new D: drive, and restored from tape, then enabled the Exchange services and started them. Always be sure to back up and restore including the Sytem State so you get all your permissions and shares back intact.

PowerEdge HDD/SCSI/RAID

Increasing Storage capacity on a Perc 4/SC Array

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