Can I simply put in another hard drive and add it to the D: drive to create more space?
NO!
Ok, well, maybe, but highly unlikely. That slot is probably for a hot spare. It's also highly unlikely you have RAID 1+0 and RAID 5 with only five drives, that setup would take seven drives minimum. More likely it's a RAID 1 and RAID 5 setup.
There are two ways to increase the capacity of RAID 5 arrays that I'm aware of. First, take a full backup and check it.
One method involves replacing the 3 member drives with larger drives one at a time, allowing full RAID rebuild between changes. You may or may not expand the RAID array just by doing this. I would contact Dell about how their controller works. My RAID 5 controller is a 3Ware and they will write me a new script to expand the array. You can also try expanding the partition if needed with an app like Partition Magic. Once the array is built, it is seen as a single drive.
The other method involves getting an IDE drive (or SATA if you have a spare port, but almost all servers have an unused IDE channel) that is at least 160GB. Using Ghost or Acronis, clone the array to the single drive, then remove the array drives, re-name the IDE drive to D:, and see if it works. If it does, test it thoroughly, then replace the 3 RAID 5 drives with new, larger ones, build the array in RAID BIOS, then clone the single drive back to the array.
I've done the second method a few times using Ghost 2003 and it worked fine. Best of luck.
Tony
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