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Article Number: 000129246

Dell PowerEdge: How to Change the RAID Level of a Virtual Disk

Summary: How to reconfigure an online virtual disk in ways that expand its capacity or changes its RAID level

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Article Content

Symptoms

Note: This article is part of the Server Tutorials: "RAID and Disks" available at PowerEdge Tutorials: Physical Disks and RAID Controller (PERC) on Servers.

An online virtual disk can be reconfigured in ways that expand its capacity and or changes its RAID level.

Cause

Not applicable

Resolution

Note:
  • The controller changes the write-cache policy of all virtual disks undergoing an RLM/OCE to Write-Through until the RLM/OCE is complete.
  • Spanned virtual disks such as RAID 50 and 60 cannot be reconfigured.
Caution:
  • Reconfiguring virtual disks typically impacts disk performance until the reconfiguration operation is complete.
  • Dell Technologies recommends performing a backup before any RAID Reconfiguration.

Online Capacity Expansion (OCE) can be done in two ways:

  • If there is a single virtual disk in a disk group and free space is available, the virtual disk’s capacity can be expanded within that free space.
  • If a virtual disk is created and it does not use the maximum size of the disk group, free space is available.

Free space can also be available when a disk group’s physical disks are replaced with larger disks using the Replace Member feature. A virtual disk's capacity can also be expanded by performing an OCE operation to add more physical disks.

RAID Level Migration (RLM) references changing a virtual disk’s RAID level. Both RLM and OCE can be done simultaneously so that a virtual disk can simultaneously have its RAID level changed and its capacity increased. When an RLM or OCE operation is complete, a reboot is not required. The source RAID level column indicates the virtual disk RAID level before the RLM or OCE operation. The target RAID level column indicates the RAID level after the RLM or OCE operation.

Note: This feature is available since the iDRAC9 generation if you also have a supported PERC (9 and 10).

To extend a virtual disk, add a similar disk in the backplane and then reconfigure the virtual disk.

Reconfiguration can be done by following these steps:

  • In the PERC BIOS menu (at startup), once the Virtual Disk is selected, press F2, then select Reconfigure.
  • In OpenManage Server Administrator (OMSA), go to System, then Storage, then PERC, then Virtual Disk, and then select Reconfigure from the dropdown menu.

Possible RAID Level Migrations:

Source RAID Target RAID Required Number of Physical Disks (Beginning) Number of Physical Disks (End) Capacity Expansion Possible Description
RAID 0 RAID 0 1 2 or more Yes Increases capacity
RAID 0 RAID 1 1 2 No Converts nonredundant virtual disk into a mirrored virtual disk by adding one disk
RAID 0 RAID 5 1 or more 3 or more Yes At least one drive must be added for distributed parity data.
RAID 0 RAID 6 1 or more 4 or more Yes At least two drives must be added for dual distributed parity data.
RAID 1 RAID 0 2 2 or more Yes Removes redundancy while increasing capacity
RAID 1 RAID 5 2 3 or more Yes Maintains redundancy while doubling capacity
RAID 1 RAID 6 2 4 or more Yes Two drives must be added for distributed parity data.
RAID 5 RAID 0 3 or more 3 or more Yes Converts to a nonredundant virtual disk and reclaims disk space that is used for distributed parity data.
RAID 5 RAID 5 3 4 or more Yes Increases capacity by adding disks
RAID 5 RAID 6 3 or more 4 or more Yes At least one drive must be added for dual distributed parity data.
RAID 6 RAID 0 4 or more 4 or more Yes Converts to a nonredundant virtual disk and reclaims disk space that is used for distributed parity data.
RAID 6 RAID 5 4 or more 4 or more Yes Removes one set of parity data and reclaims the disk space that is used for it.
RAID 6 RAID 6 4 5 or more Yes Increases capacity by adding disks
RAID 10 RAID 10 Less than 32 32 Yes Increases capacity by adding disks
Note: If the controller already contains the maximum number of virtual disks, you cannot perform a RAID level migration or capacity expansion on any virtual disk.
Note: Reference these articles to troubleshoot various hard drive, PowerEdge Expandable RAID Controller (PERC), RAID, and OpenManage issues:

How to change the RAID Level or Size of a configured Virtual Disk

Duration: 00:01:22 (hh:mm:ss)
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Article Properties

Affected Product

PowerEdge, C Series, Modular Infrastructure, Rack Servers, Tower Servers, XE Servers

Last Published Date

15 Sep 2023

Version

8

Article Type

Solution

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