Hi Brian,

What type of array do you have, RAID 5? Are you wanting to expand that RAID with smaller drives. If so, that will not work. Using smaller drives will not be allowed in that case. You can always use larger drives as the extra space is ignored. Speed wise, you can add slower drives an existing array. However, It will obviously degrade the overall performance of the array since the those drives will commit slower than the faster drives.

If you're creating a separate new array, then it will not matter.  Please let us know what exactly you are expanding and we can provide more info. We'll be glad to help. 

It is RAID5.1.2TB SAS 15KRPM - I have 3 slots left --
It has been a while since I have reconfigured a raid array!
I will just use the same as above for the new drives.
Using Dell OpenManage, I just put the new drives in HOT (that is not powering off the server) and then I can extend the existing Virtual drive?
Thanks for your help.

Sorry, i missed that in the title. Yes, in OpenManage, go to the Virtual Disk section and on that RAID 5 array, select Reconfigure.  If the new drives are installed are all in the ready state, then the form will present the appropriate options.  Select the correct connector to be able the see the other drives as needed. 

If using Windows 2008 or newer, you will then go Disk Management and expand the partition to use the new unallocated space.  

Yes, this all done live and there will be performance degradation. I would recommend you first run a consistency check on the array prior(also done live). This should be done monthly anyways and it may take several hours to complete but but will give better odds against something going wrong pertaining to data consistency or corruption issues. The Consistency Check is also on the same pull down section where you can start the reconfigure in OMSA.  Of course also perform a full backup.

Although you can add all 3 new drives, some customers like to do one drive at at time to play little more safe. It is up to you based your time frame that you have. I also recommend you kick off the rebuild after hours when the system the least busy. 

OK great.And I can do this in a live environment of course? Specifically Exchange 2013.
I am guessing there will be slight overhead during the reconfiguration and extension processes?

Thanks very much for your quick response.
It is a Poweredge R420 with Perc H310.. this should still be OK to do right?

Yes, that is fine. However, there is no performance cache on that controller. You may find a serious performance hit if doing the reconfigure during production usage. You may want to perform this upgrade during the weekend when the system is not busy. 

Hello,

I am going to be doing this in the next few weeks. 

Through OM if I go to Virtual Disks, I don't see reconfigure,

I do see it on the Storage dashboard for ther PERC H310 Mini - "Reset Configuration ... "

This is where I go?