Expanding

[dibekem]

Hi guys.

 

I’m trying to expand the size of a drive which is in a RAID 5 configuration.

I have added an extra drive to the server (Bay 6) and it shows up in the ACU but when I go to the Disk Management, the drive shows as unallocated space and I can’t figure it out how to add this drive to my existing School Data drive. I have attached a document which contains the snap shot of the current configuration.

 

So in a nut shell I’d like to add the 279GB of unallocated space to my drive G School Data (568GB).

 

Any help would be much appreciated.

 

Thanks

Expanding Raid 5.docx

[fairm010]

Youll need to right click on the School Data drive and then select Expand Volume. It will then allow you to use the unallocated space.

[dibekem]

Thanks for your reply.

 

Unfortunatelly that options is grayed out!

[fairm010]

Hmm sorry I cant help any further, its not often I have to do this. I'm sure someone more knowledgeable will be along soon!

[smithson83]

Are you sure it is assigned to the RAID 5 Array, otherwise windows will see it as a separate drive and you wont be able to expand into it

[dibekem]

well Im not sure.

 

we had bay 5 and bay 4 failing recently so I changed those drives, turned out that bay 4's drive did not fail but by then we had a new drive. So I thought I stick it in.

 

That is now in Bay 6.

 

When I pull out bay 6 drive the disk managment still showd that there was that unallocated drive. I also tryied to pull out bay 5 and bay 4 with the same results. I only pulled out one at a time. confusing:)

Edited April 24, 2015 by dibekem

[SHimmer45]

on your server are you using a hardware raid setup (so in a dell you would be using the PERC card to manage and create the array)

or just have the disk in the server and then using windows to create a software array (in disk management)**

 

 

 

EDIT i should read attachments lol

[SHimmer45]

not familiar with HP but with dell you can add a disk to a raid volume and then you can expand it using disk management so windows makes use of the extra space.

 

looking at your picture the drive is not part of the array where the school data is.

 

also bay 4 looks like its setup as a hotspare currently?

Edited April 24, 2015 by SHimmer45

[smithson83]

You have to assign the new drive to the existing array, or its just another separate drive. Have a mooch around in the HP Array Config Utility (maybe under show or wizzards), see if there is somewhere to add the drive to the existing array, then it should show up as unallocated space at the end of disk0 in Disk Management under windows

[dibekem]

I had to leave the school now. Will be back on Monday and I think im gonna delete bay 6 and re add it to the right place:) yes bay 4 is a spare. when I pulled bay 6 or 5 out, bay 4 kicked in to take over. I think that's ok. Still not clear why I have 2 logical drives one with 4 drives and the other (bay5 and 6) 2 drives. Shouldn't be just one?

[PotNoodleTech]

If you are trying to add a new drive into a Raid array - you need to do firstly add the drive to the logical volume in the Array configuration utility first before you can do anything in Windows.

 

Not familiar with the HP interface but there should be some way of telling it you wish to expand the array. I would suggest you need to be in the logical view rather than enclosure view to do this.

[PotNoodleTech]

If you do it correctly in the array configuration utility - it should look like this: There should be no Disk2.