WaringTim,

If you are trying to expand the Data array to 3TB drives,  I would first backup your data,  replace both drives with your 3TB drives and create a new array on the larger drives.  Then restore your data on the larger array.   The problem with replacing one drive at a time is that the larger drives become 500gb drives as they rebuild and leaves you with unusable space.  

Regards,

 

Anything we can do for this to work as expected?

Using the WD Reds, this might be what one would expect (or at least shouldn't be unexpected) ...

Which RAID controller are you using?

What do you mean that with WD Reds this would be expected?

As per the title of the post, PERC H310 is the controller we are using.

We are looking for the least downtime. This is why we want to replace them 1 at a time. I know that for the entire time of the rebuild that the drive will still only be 500GB, and this is fine, to me it is the safest and quickest way to ensure we don't lose data and don't have to be down for 4 hours to build a new array, and restore data.

If we cant work out why we cant rebuild, it is likely that we would go down that path though, as it may be less painless.

Sorry ... when responding to a post, the thread title is not visible.  Including everything in the post is usually helpful.

I say that because the Reds are designed and tested for a particular RAID implementation on specific NAS devices and were never designed for direct-attached enterprise RAID controllers.  Many people on the forums have experienced issues with the Reds, probably because of the power-saving features of the drives not being fully compatible with the controllers they are being used with. Issues should be half-expected when non-certified/non-enterprise drives.

I suspect that is why the rebuild is failing, although a bluescreen is unusual for any rebuild failure, particularly when not on a system partition array.

You might consider putting the original drive in to see if it rebuilds.  If so, then it is probably your drive, although you could try running a Consistency Check before trying the Red again.  If the original doesn't rebuild, then you may have an issue with the array integrity itself.

Even if you get the 3TB to rebuild, you may not be able to take advantage of the extra space.  The H310 is a low-end controller, and while it should support >2TB drives, it may: 

1) not be able to expand to utilize the extra space; the H7x0 was the first PERC to introduce this feature and was introduced in a later release and was documented in its release notes - no such entry is found in the release notes for the H310, so it may not have the capability,

2) not be able to create a second array across the disks; previous PERC's that could not expand to fill available space on the disks could create multiple arrays across the same set of disks (called 'slicing'); not all controllers supported this - the SAS 6/iR and H200 - the H310's predecessors - do not support this,

Both of which would mean you will not be able to make use of the larger drives at all.