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December 10th, 2014 13:00
Replacing Drives in RAID 5 Array
Hello,
I have an R710 with a PERC6 card and four 300GB 15k SAS drives . The RAID 5 array is currently configured with 557GB of usable space. 100GB of that space is dedicated to the OS, and the other 457GB is left for network storage for our employees. The issue I have run into is we need more network storage, as we only have 30GB left.
My current plan is to purchase four new 600GB 15k SAS drives to replace the 300GB drives currently being used. It has been quite some time since I have dealt with RAID 5 and Dell's OpenManage in general, so I need some clarifications. First off, I would like to state that we have regular images/complete backups of the entire system, so that will not be an issue.
Once I have the new drives, I would power down the server, replace one of the drives in the array, power it back up and use the CTRL-R utility to let the array rebuild. I would repeat this process until all four drives have been replaced. Once all four drives have been replaced I would enter OpenManage, go to virtual drives and select reconfigure. From there I will be able to expand the capacity of the array?
Am I missing anything critical here? Anything to look out for, or any suggestions?
EDIT: Something else I wanted to ask. I also have two extra slots for drives available on this same server. If I wanted to add two additional 600GB drives to the other four, would I be able to utilize the space available on those when expanding the capacity, or would I need to rebuild the entire array?
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theflash1932
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December 10th, 2014 13:00
First, never power down to replace or introduce a hot-swappable disk to an array. Always replace them "hot".
Replacing the disks one at a time will not give you the result you are looking for. Online Capacity Expansion and RAID Level Migration does not work this way on the PERC 6. You would need the H7x0 controllers to be able to do this. After doing so, the array will remain the same size, with no way to expand it to fill the available space on the disks.
The ONLY thing you will be able to do once you replace them one at a time, is create a second array across the disks. This will appear to the OS as a separate "disk".
Options:
1. Replace them individually with larger drives, then create a separate array across the disks using the available space. Because it will be a separate "disk", you will not be able to merge the new space with existing partitions.
2. You can add disks to the RAID 5, converting the 4-disk RAID 5 to a 6-disk RAID 5, giving you an additional 600GB of disk space. If you use disks larger than 300GB, that additional space CANNOT be utilized in any way (unless you replace them all with equally large disks, then you can create another array/VD).
3. Remove smaller disks, insert larger disks, configure larger RAID, restore backup.