PERC H730 Expand Virtual disk by replacing physical disks

Question

We have a PowerEdge R730 with a PERC H730 Mini that has a RAID misconfiguration error.

The server has 2 x 300GB disks and 6 x 600GB disks. When the server was installed all the disks were added to 1 virtual RAID 5 disk meaning that half the capacity of the 600 GB disks is wasted. It should have been configured as 2 virtual disks, one RAID 1 and 1 RAID 5.

I realise we could wipe the server, reconfigure the RAID and then restore from backup but was wondering if there was another answer. Would it be possible to replace the 2 300GB disks with 600GB disks and then somehow expand the existing virtual RAID 5 disk to take advantage of the extra physical capacity?

Thanks in advance

Adrian

Dell-DylanJ · Answer

Hi Adrian,

If you use OpenManage, you should be able to do this. What you would want to do is to use the "Replace Member Disk..." option to replace one of the 300GB drives with a 600GB drive, then let it rebuild. Repeat this for the second drive. Once both are done, you should be able to perform an online expansion. I can't recall exactly where this is in OpenManage, but this video I'm linking to shows where to expand an array from the F2 menu.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkFDzerdD0w

Adrian W · Answer

Thanks Dylan It will be mid February now before we get a chance to try this but I will report back Adrian

DELL-Rey G · Answer

I just wanted to confirm, all 8 drives are in a Raid 5 right now?  Rey #Iwork4Dell

Adrian W · Answer

Yes that right, I have just replaced the 2 x 300GB drives now so all 8 are 600 GB

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PERC H730 Expand Virtual disk by replacing physical disks

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