Need to remove disks from RAID5 array - can this be done?

Question

I need two 300GB drives from my RAID5 array on a PV S220/PERC4/Di setup.  I have very under-utilized storage on this array while I badly need the drives for storage in another server.  Can I simply remove the disks one-at-a-time (while system is on-line) and let the array automatically regenerate RAID5 with the 'new' storage space?  My configuration is as seen below:   PERC4/Di connected to PowerVault S220 with Qty 7 300GB SCSI drives = approx 2T *Want to educe to 5 drives total = approx 1.5T   Thanks for any insight!

Storagetalk · Answer

If you remove two drives from your raid5 you'll destroy your data.  You can't shrink containers down on the fly.  You'll need to back up your data, destroy the container, recreate with only 5 drives and do whatever you need to do with the other two drives.   What I'm confused with is you saying 'let it reconfigure with the 'new' storage space'.   I think I'm missing something.

PowerVault

Need to remove disks from RAID5 array - can this be done?

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