Advice on upgrading HDD in hp gen8 micro server

2013 · 18 Dec 2017 at 13:35

Could someone give me some advice on how to upgrade HDD in hp gen8 micro server ?

Do I just turn off the server and change the HDD i want to replace ?
Nothing wrong with the old one just got a larger drive.

bremen1874 · 18 Dec 2017 at 13:46

Do you have spare HDD slots?

Do you want to copy the contents of the old drive to the new?

2013 · 18 Dec 2017 at 13:51

bremen1874 said:
Do you have spare HDD slots?

Do you want to copy the contents of the old drive to the new?

I have 2 spare slots,
Yes I would like to copy the contents of the old mirrored drives to the new one,

I have 1 3tb drive and one 4tb drive mirrored, I want to replace the 3tb drive.

bremen1874 · 18 Dec 2017 at 14:03

If it's mirrored you should be able to pull the 3TB, replace it with the 4TB, and then let it rebuild. Exactly how will depend on how you've done the mirror.

Is the extra TB on the 4TB drive empty at the moment?

Make sure you have a backup, although the pulled 3TB will still have a copy of everything.

2013 · 18 Dec 2017 at 14:07

bremen1874 said:
If it's mirrored you should be able to pull the 3TB, replace it with the 4TB, and then let it rebuild. Exactly how will depend on how you've done the mirror.

Is the extra TB on the 4TB drive empty at the moment?

Make sure you have a backup, although the pulled 3TB will still have a copy of everything.

Thanks.
Yes, 1TB of the 4TB should be empty, they are mirrored as 3TB.

bremen1874 · 18 Dec 2017 at 14:09

Once it's rebuilt you should be able to extend the partition easily enough.

2013 · 18 Dec 2017 at 14:17

bremen1874 said:
Once it's rebuilt you should be able to extend the partition easily enough.

Would it not build as 4tb ?
if not what would i need to do to change it to 4tb ?

bremen1874 · 18 Dec 2017 at 14:23

No it'll still be 3TB but with 1TB free on both drives.

The details of how to expand the array and partition to use the full 4TB will depend on how it's currently configured.

At the moment we don't even know what OS you're running.

2013 · 18 Dec 2017 at 14:25

I'm running windows 10 at the moment.
if you need more info let me know.

bremen1874 · 18 Dec 2017 at 14:29

How is the array configured?

When you were setting it up from scratch what did you do?

2013 · 18 Dec 2017 at 15:12

bremen1874 said:
How is the array configured?

When you were setting it up from scratch what did you do?

I setup in the hp setup bios i think its called hp ilo.

Raid 1. Array 2, array one is the OS SSD

bremen1874 · 18 Dec 2017 at 16:36

So you're using the n board B120i raid controller?

You need to check if it's capable of performing an array expansion. I'd guess not as that usually requires a BBU and AFAIK the there's nowhere on the Gen8 to connect one.

2013 · 18 Dec 2017 at 16:39

Yes im using the B120i raid controller

2013 · 18 Dec 2017 at 22:50

Hi does any ideas what I need to do to change the size without loosing data ??

Armageus · 18 Dec 2017 at 23:00

2013 said:
Hi does any ideas what I need to do to change the size without loosing data ??

It's not possible to expand a logical drive (i.e. the 3TB volume that is currently mirrored) on a BL120i from what I can see.

Only real way of doing it is going to be to take a backup (with something like Macrium reflect, providing it has drivers for a B120i), pull the 3tb drive and swap it for the other 4tb, then delete and recreate the logical drive, and restore the backup (e.g. using a bootable copy of the backup software)
Worst case you will still have the 3tb that you should be able to reinstall and reimport into the raid controller (although not sure if the B120i actually supports that)