Windows 2000 and adding drives to Raid 5 Array

[detroit]

Help!

I've got a 2000 server that has 4 72 gig scsi drives setup in raid 5 (Gives me about 200 gigs total) with a hot spare. This is a Compaq Smart Array 5i raid controller.

Currently there are 2 logical partitions. 1 - 20 gig O/S Partition and programs. 2- 180 gig data for the enterprise

We currently are down to 25 gigs on the D drive (180 gig partition)

Here's what I want to do, but I don't know if it can be done or not.....

I want to remove the Hot Spare (which is a 72gig) and add it and another 72 gig to the Raid 5 array.

Here's the questions....

1. Can I add the 2 drives into the array without having to delete the array and recreate?

2. If I can add them, what will happen on the windows side of things? Will it recognize and prompt me as to where to add the additional space?

3. I am going to upgrade this to 2003 server. Should I do this BEFORE doing the Raid changes?

Any and all help is appreciated.

Detroit

 

[NetIntruder]

wow, it's been a while on the hardware side with questions like this, but i believe in the Compaq Array Configuration Utility you can remove that spare drive, then add it into the RAID5 set and have it extended, just not as a spare this time. From what i remember, this takes quite some time to migrate, but i believe this can be done.



~Intruder~
CEH, CISSP, MCSA/MCSE 2000/2003

"The Less You Do, The Less Can Go Wrong"

 

[NickFerrar]

1). You should be able to do this on most decent RAID controllers.
2). Windows won't do anything, if you go into disk manager you'll just see a new chunk of unused space on the disk.
3). Nothing to do before apart from a backup

To get Windows to use the space use Microsoft's diskpart utility, it only takes a few seconds to run as all you're doing is extending a non system partition. Not sure if Compaq replaces disk manager (on Dell's it gets replaced), if it does you'll likely need to uninstall Compaq's disk managment utility before you can run diskpart. The RAID config itself in step 1 will take a fair while longer though.

The other option would be to buy a tool like Paragon Partition Manager which post-RAID config simplyfies things a bit, it's not needed though unless you're extending a system partition as diskpart can't do that.