How to increase storage capacity in existing RAID 10

[Kyo83]

Hi all

We have a Dell PowerEdge 2950 with a Perc6/1 controller card in it.

We're currently using four of the six hard drive bays in a RAID 10 configuration, running VMWare Esx Server 3i 3.5.0.

Each drive is a 300GB/17k SAS.

How do I go about increasing the capacity of this configuration?

Do I have to just rebuild the whole Array or can I swap out the small drives for large drives one as the system rebuilds the array on each new drive?

We tried putting larger drives in the two extra drive bay hoping that would all us to create another Virtual data disk but the controller only sees them as hot swappable spares?

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Kyo83]

C'mon!

33 looks and not one response!?!?

Did I not give enough information or is this a higher level problem than I thought?

Please help, even if its just someplace else to look. I've search on google, which is how I found this site, but it no luck yet.

Thanks in advance.

Kyo83

 

[tpg]

Hey, kyo83. Did you ever find an answer to your questions? I'm in a similar situation where my current RAID storage is almost full and I'm looking for a way to add additional drive to increase total storage without interrupting what is already in place. Same as you, I've had no luck from my Google searches so far.

 

[nelsonabreu]

Hey guys, I'm in the same situation for my most important client. I have found nothing, and Adaptec says they do not support it, and will not answer whether it is possible or not. I'm not going to bother posting this until I'm done, so I'm typing in real time.

The array currently has four 500GB SSDs in a RAID 10. I am trying to add two more 500GB SSDs.

First, I captured multiple good backups with verifies. Next, I opened up the server and switched controllers. One thing, they said that you cannot move RAID 10 between controllers, that is BS, I just moved from a single channel 6405 to dual channel 6805E controller and it was seamless.

The bad part comes now, I added the additional drives into the array controller and initialized them. I'm logging into the server now and will see if it provides options to do anything useful with the existing array.

OK had some problems with the Adaptec manager, anfter a full uninstall, reboot, install, reboot cycle, I was able to open it up. I right clicked on the array and selected expand. On the right pane, I checked off the two new drives and clicked apply. It's doing it's thing now, lets see what happens.

OK now the array shows six members, and shows as configuring.

Well, shut the server down, put it back in the rack, restarted. Still shows as reconfiguring, still shows old capacity, but I will imagine it will have to finish reconfiguring before it will allow access to the new capacity.

I will call this a tentative victory right now. This applies to the controllers I am using and to Windows 2008R2 Enterprise. Be cautious and make sure you have VERIFIED backups before you try on your own. Best of luck, I will try to remember to post here once it hits 100%, it's 4% now after 30 minutes runtime, thats um.... 12.5 hours at the present rate, so it would be tomorrow some time.

Best of luck,

Nelson

 

[nelsonabreu]

And yes I realize this is an old thread, but there is such a dearth of information out there about this that I am hoping someone can benefit.

 

[y2bne1]

First off, always make a backup of data to an external.

It should be possible via OMSA. Go into the Storage and look for the drop down menu "Available Tasks." Then Select Reset Configuration then execute.

Cheers~