Expanding Perc 5/i array

Deadude

Deadude

Deadude

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Joined
6 Jan 2008
Posts
153
Hi

im about to add two more drives to my raid 5 array. has anyone else on here done this and how easy is it to do and do i need to add 1 drive at a time or can i add both of them and then expand the array?

Also ive read you can do this through the bios or through either the dell software or the megaraid software which is best?
 
I've done it loads of times, you can add multiple drives at once if you like. I use the megaraid software.
  • Connect your new disks to the system, I'd advise connecting them directly to the motherboard first and running a full surface error scan from the manufacturers diagnostic tools. If it all checks out, connect the drive to your Perc.
  • Start up the megaraid software, go to the Logical tab and right click the Virtual Disk.
  • Run a Consistency check to be on the safe side before you start.
  • Once the Consistency check is finished, right click the Virtual Disk again, go to 'Advanced Operations' and the Reconstruction Wizard
  • It should be fairly self explanatory here to follow the wizard and add the new disks into the array, One thing to watch out for is that the RAID level does not change, or it might reconstruct your RAID5 into a RAID0.
  • You can check progress using the 'show progress' item under the 'Group Operations' menu at the top of the screen. It will take a long time to reconstruct, how long depends on the number and size of drives. For me adding the 8th 1TB drive in took around 4 days to reconstruct! You can alter the rates for consistency checks and reconstructs by clicking on the Perc in the logical disk tree, opening the 'Operations' tab and and going to 'Set Adjustable Task Rates'.
  • Once done you'll need to extend the Volume so windows can use the space, Open up CMD, run DISKPART, enter 'list volume' then 'Select volume #' where # is the volume id of your Perc. Then enter 'extend' and the volume will grow to fill all the new space you made on the virtual disk.
  • Note that if you want a single partition larger than 2TB, you'll need to convert the virtual disk from MBR to GPT first ... In which case you won't be able to boot from that volume.
 
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Awesome thanks for all that. One more thing seeing as im still running XP (yes i know i should upgrade) will i be OK making another virtual disk out of the two new drives and then expanding that to the current one due to 32 bit XP's 2Tb limit or will i run into any problems?
 
Deadude said:
Awesome thanks for all that. One more thing seeing as im still running XP (yes i know i should upgrade) will i be OK making another virtual disk out of the two new drives and then expanding that to the current one due to 32 bit XP's 2Tb limit or will i run into any problems?
Click to expand...

AFAIK 32 bit XP doesn't support GPT at all, so your only option is to use your new drives to create a separate virtual disk with MBR, which will have a maximum size of 2TB.
What is your current configuration, and what drives are you adding?
 
ATM i have 3 1.5Tbs consisting of two seperate virtual disks one being 2Tb the other around 1Tb and then these are spanned into one drive letter in windows. and i want to add another two drives to the array.

If that all becomes too complicated i could always make the move to windows 7 but if i do would my two virtual drives stay spanned ok or not?

It's not my boot disk so thats not a problem.
 
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