Installing harddrive using Array Manager

Question

Hi everyone, I just installed two additional harddrives with 250GB each, they also appear in ArrayManager. Is it enough then to click on reconfigure on the ArrayGroup (in my case DATA 1 0) for the harddrives to be included in RAID5 and to be able to use the additional space? Thanks in advance! Chris

def_yann · Answer

Hi it's possible to do this but you must do this reconfigure operation just one disk at the same time.

When you click on reconfigure you choose only one disk of two which are not in the Raid volume and then you can reconfigure your array.

But you must wait the end of array rebuild.

Pay attention to the size of disk on the volume, size must be equal or less then the news disks.

It's important to have fullbackup of your system to prevent any problems...

Good luck

See this it's interesting for you : http://www.dellcommunity.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=pes_hardrive&thread.id=25663

Message Edited by def_yann on 07-11-2007 08:14 AM

abenstex · Answer

Not it has just finished reconfiguring the raid5 with the first harddrive but the disk space did not change at all! What could be the reason for this or what could I have missed?

abenstex · Answer

After finishing the complete reconfiguration, the virtual disk has approx. 1TB, but unfortunately under Windows Disk Manager 500GB appear as unused disk space/partition. Is there an easy way to include the 500GB into the C:-partition? Actually I thought this would happen automatically, because after all the two new disks are part of the virtual disk.

DELL-GaryS · Answer

Hi abenstex,     No it's like you had a hard drive that can have additional platters attached to it, the data written on the original platters is not changed when you add the new platters. All that happens is that the O/S 'sees' that the hard drive is larger. There are third party utilities out there that claim they can add this new space to the C: logical drive, cannot do it with Microsoft's O/S.   As an official Dell voice, I cannot recommend something unless I know it will work, I've not used these utilities.     I invite others to share their experiances with using these utilities to add new space to the C: drive.   Good luck, Dell-GaryS

MB90 · Answer

I currently have 3 SCSI drives 100GIG on a Dell PowerEdge 2650 server in a hardware
RAID 5 configuration with only 1 C: partition running out space. I'm wanting to add a 4th
drive to mark a X drive: I have Dell Array Manager
installed, i have added a drive but can not see it in the disk manager.

now what.

DELL-GaryS · Answer

Hi MB90,     After physically adding a drive (and a drive carrier, don't use the drive blanks, no grounding on the blanks and the drive will not mate with the BP connector) you need to go into array manager and reconfigure your array, there should be a popup box and it will offer the new drive as available to be added to the array, and be sure to select RAID 5 when adding the drive. (backup your data first!!!!)   Regards, Dell-GaryS

MB90 · Answer

still do not see the drive in the AM, the systems did see a new drive at post, what is the missing step?

PowerEdge HDD/SCSI/RAID

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