expanding PERC 5/i Array

apilbeam · 28 Nov 2009 at 00:27

Hi Guys,

currently have a 3 disk RAID5 set up on my Dell PERC 5/i, just bought 2 more disks to expand the RAID5 array, however i cant find the option either in the software or the bios to add the new drives to the current array!

anyone successfully done this and know how to?

Thanks

Zarf · 28 Nov 2009 at 01:16

openup the megaraid manager in windows, go to the 'logical' tab, right click on the virtual disk and go to advanced operations -> reconstruction wizard.

I've done it quite a few times, it's pretty easy from there, just make sure that you don't migrate RAID level at the same time as i seem to remember it wants to default as RAID0.

It does take a while to run, probably the best part of a day for that reconstruction. Don't worry if the status monitor seems to have frozen.

apilbeam · 28 Nov 2009 at 01:26

ah thanks! that was simple! that option is pretty hidden though!

now to leave it overnight to rebuild!

Thanks Zarf

apilbeam · 29 Nov 2009 at 12:13

hey!

left the raid overnight to add the drive into the array and now all i get is a degraded raid array and the new disk says "unconfigured and good" tried making it a hotspare to see if it would rebuild onto it and but nothing changed.

any ideas? raid card is in a Windows 7 x64 PC, i have extended the drive in windows for it to use the full 4.5Tb raid5 but the dell/LSI software says its degraded still

any ideas?

marscay · 30 Nov 2009 at 09:06

The message window should tell you what happened, chances are that the drive is bad if it dropped the drive from the array whilst expanding.

Zarf · 30 Nov 2009 at 09:19

Its usually a good idea to run a few cycles of the manufacturers "deep surface scan" diagnostics on a new disk before trying to add it to an array, since disks failing in the first 24 hours is pretty common.

As Marcsay says, let us know what the message log is saying, and it's probably just that your new disk is dodgy - you should run the manufacturers diagnostics on it to confirm (ideally in another PC, you'll probably want to power down your file server until you can repair the array)

apilbeam · 30 Nov 2009 at 10:05

managed to sort it late last nght, i just had to rebuild to the new drive.

the options in this software seem to be a pain to get to sometimes!

i think the card overheated whilst rebuilding though as it stopped detecting all drives at one point and now some of the data is corrupt!

Zarf · 30 Nov 2009 at 13:43

Makes sense - have you not put a fan on it? These cards were designed for server cases with forced air.

apilbeam · 30 Nov 2009 at 14:48

there was a fan blowing onto it but i have now done some rearranging and cable tidying and the fan is now blowing more air onto it, i have also set it at 100% at least until the rebuild is done.

seems to be rebuilding fine now with no corrupt files so i just have to wait and try not to use it until the rebuild is done.

thanks for all the help guys!