Using External SATA Drive w/ 745N

Question

I need to increase the internal storage of our PV 745N.

I noticed there are two spare SATA ports available on the SATA Card.

Am I able to add two drives to these and have them co-exist in our current RAID 5 array? Will I have to rebuild the array?

Or should I have these be a seperate logical drive?

But most of all, will I risk voiding my warranty?!?!?!?

Thanks,

Sam

Sammyc53 · Answer

Thanks for getting back to me.

I am looking at using external storage. More specifically, eSATA. I was hoping to run the eSATA cables from the external drives, to the internal SATA card, using the two spare ports on the cerc sata card.

I know I can do that,

What I don't know, is if I will have to rebuild the raid 5 array if I want to add those drives to it...

And, will that void my warranty. (I really don't see why it would).

Bezalel · Answer

It sounds like you have an external storage model. You cannot add internal drives to your RAID array. you need to add drives to your external enclosure.

Sammyc53 · Answer

Thanks for getting back to me.

So if I have to rebuild the array, does that mean I will loss any data on the existing logical drives?

Can I just add drive to the logical array and not worry about lossing any data?

Bezalel · Answer

I got mixed up, I thought you had 2 empty bays. Yes you can extend a RAID 5 array on a CERC, You will have to rebuild but you don't have to take the array offline.   You will not void your warranty on the hardware (unless this configuration damages the hardware) but Dell will not provide support unless you restore the hadware to its origional configuration.

Dev Mgr · Answer

Are you already using 4 x 500GB drives? If not, wouldn't it be easier to upgrade the drives first? Dell doesn't seem to offer these currently, but either with trying to figure out a way to connect 2 external SATA drives in combination with the 4 internal drives, or alternatively just upgrading the internal drives, I'd think upgrading the internal drives would be much easier.

Sammyc53 · Answer

True. Good point. we still have 4x250GB drives. Now, will Dell give us support if we upgrade those? I was under the assumption that they wouldn't.

Dev Mgr · Answer

Dell wouldn't support them, correct, but Dell wouldn't support hooking up 2 external SATA drives either, and the latter is more involving than the earlier.

The external storage option that Dell offers means you get 2 drives internal on a software mirror (dynamic drive feature of Windows (2003)), and then there's a PERC card that can be connected to a PV220S scsi enclosure.

PowerVault

Using External SATA Drive w/ 745N

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