Guest JimRBG Posted October 7, 2008 Posted October 7, 2008 I'm working on a server that needs to expand the hard drive capacity. The system is a Dell 2950 server. It currently has 4 x 300gb drives configured as RAID 5 array. There are 2 spare drive bays open to add drives to. If I just add additional drives, say 2 more 300gb drives, do I just go into computer management, disk management and partition the additional capacity as a new drive? How should I approach this. I do not want to reformat the existing drive and re-install the OS. Thanks, Jim
Guest Lanwench [MVP - Exchange] Posted October 7, 2008 Posted October 7, 2008 Re: add a disk to an existing RAID 5 array on windows 2003 server JimRBG <JimRBG@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote: > I'm working on a server that needs to expand the hard drive capacity. > The system is a Dell 2950 server. It currently has 4 x 300gb drives > configured as RAID 5 array. There are 2 spare drive bays open to add > drives to. If I just add additional drives, say 2 more 300gb drives, > do I just go into computer management, disk management and partition > the additional capacity as a new drive? > > How should I approach this. I do not want to reformat the existing > drive and re-install the OS. > > Thanks, > > Jim Is this a hardware RAID? If so, you don't do it in Windows, you'd do it in the RAID config, which you can get to at boot time.
Guest JimRBG Posted October 8, 2008 Posted October 8, 2008 Re: add a disk to an existing RAID 5 array on windows 2003 server Yes, the array is a hardware array and was created using the Dell utility "Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]" wrote: > JimRBG <JimRBG@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote: > > I'm working on a server that needs to expand the hard drive capacity. > > The system is a Dell 2950 server. It currently has 4 x 300gb drives > > configured as RAID 5 array. There are 2 spare drive bays open to add > > drives to. If I just add additional drives, say 2 more 300gb drives, > > do I just go into computer management, disk management and partition > > the additional capacity as a new drive? > > > > How should I approach this. I do not want to reformat the existing > > drive and re-install the OS. > > > > Thanks, > > > > Jim > > Is this a hardware RAID? If so, you don't do it in Windows, you'd do it in > the RAID config, which you can get to at boot time. > > >
Guest Lanwench [MVP - Exchange] Posted October 8, 2008 Posted October 8, 2008 Re: add a disk to an existing RAID 5 array on windows 2003 server JimRBG <JimRBG@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote: > Yes, the array is a hardware array and was created using the Dell > utility You can probably do this within OpenManage, if your controller firmware/drivers are current. Or do it in the character-based setup at boot time as mentioned earlier. You can add them as a separate mirrored array. After you've done this you can go into computer management/disk management and the new drive should show up there, waiting to be partitioned/whatnot. > > "Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]" wrote: > >> JimRBG <JimRBG@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote: >>> I'm working on a server that needs to expand the hard drive >>> capacity. The system is a Dell 2950 server. It currently has 4 x >>> 300gb drives configured as RAID 5 array. There are 2 spare drive >>> bays open to add drives to. If I just add additional drives, say 2 >>> more 300gb drives, do I just go into computer management, disk >>> management and partition the additional capacity as a new drive? >>> >>> How should I approach this. I do not want to reformat the existing >>> drive and re-install the OS. >>> >>> Thanks, >>> >>> Jim >> >> Is this a hardware RAID? If so, you don't do it in Windows, you'd do >> it in the RAID config, which you can get to at boot time.
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