Merging disk allocation on R740/MD1420

Question

I have an MD1420 connected to an R740 running Windows 2016 server. The C drive is on 2 mirrored drives on the server. I have 2 data drives - one on the internal R740 disks (S drive) and one on the MD (G Drive). I have 4 TB of disk space free on the 740 internal disks that I'd like to use to extend the G drive, but Windows does not see them as contiguous.

Is there an easy and safe way for me to change that so I can add the space to G? If not, I can create another drive with the free space, but extending G would be my preference.

Thanks.

DELL-Chris H · Accepted Answer

I wouldn't recommend that you span a partition over two virtual disks, the reason being is if there is a failure of one of the VDs it would affect the partition, and also by doing so you increase the chances of it happening as well.

DELL-Josh Cr · Answer

Hi trnc, Unfortunately, there is not a way in Windows to do this. The best option is probably symbolic links.

trnc · Answer

Thanks for the response, Josh. I have some new info, so I'd like to throw this out there again.

Here's a pic of Windows Disk Mgmt.

1 is the G drive that spans the entire 1420. The 1420 is all one virtual disk.

2, 3 and 4 are the internal disks on the 740, and they comprise one large virtual disk

4 is the S drive.

2 is the free space that I want to add to the G drive (about 3 TB)

3 is the free space that I would like to keep free so that I can add to either the G drive or the S drive later

I discovered after my original post that I have the "Extend Volume" option on the G drive after all.When I click that and continue, it shows me the available free space (2 and 3 in red above) as being available, so Windows does recognize it. The question now is whether spanning one partition across 2 virtual disks will cause a problem (eg, corrupt the data on the G drive).

I hope that clarifies my setup. Sorry for the incorrect info in my first post.

trnc · Answer

OK, thanks. I may not have mentioned that both arrays are raid 6, but I understand there's still more risk with the spanned partition so I'll just create a separate drive with the free space.

DELL-Josh Cr · Answer

Let us know if you have any other questions.

PowerVault

Merging disk allocation on R740/MD1420

Was this post helpful?

Register Now! for Secure Secrets with Kubernetes & DevSecOps - and grab a lab!