RAID 5

Olly · 28 Mar 2006 at 19:33

I currently run raid 5 on 3x400gb connected to a rocket raid controller. The array was set up in the bios of the controller, so server 2003 only sees one dive.
this is all fine, however, I want to add more 400gb hdds to this array. The only way i can see me doing this is to destroy the array (which means backing up 800gb) and creating a new array from scratch.

So what i need to know is this:
Im thinking of setting up the RAID Array in server 2003.....will i be able to add drives to the array using this method and also if I reformat my main OS hdd, will the raid array stay intact....will server 2003 recognise it again and initialise it ?

The reason i used the rocketraid bios to set the drives up was i though hardware raid would've been better than software raid

help !

Olly · 28 Mar 2006 at 21:18

anyone ?

oldbag · 28 Mar 2006 at 21:19

You have to blow the array away I would have thought and then rebuild.

NickK · 29 Mar 2006 at 05:10

Yes in Server '03 you have to destroy the array. You cannot expand the size of the array.

With Linux (2.6 kernel and above) with EVMS then you can expand the array to add space without destroying the array or loosing the data on it.
This is what I've done to mine in the past.
Expect a good 7-10 hours of process to do this and you will need to maintain the desktop session during that period (EVMS does the expand). So best do it in the concole at the box itself rather than using VNC.

Olly · 29 Mar 2006 at 10:02

thanks for your replies guys !