Expanding hardware raid

julian23 · 11-29-2006, 06:10 AM

Hi,

As i was runnign short of space i have expanded my raid1 array from 36gb to 146gb by inserting 1 146gb disk, waiting for a rebuild then inserting the other 146gb disk. All looks fine, scsi bios reports the new array size but both fdisk and parted are still reading as 36gb (i guess from the partition table).

How can i refresh these values so that they can see the rest of the space so i can start partitioning it?

farslayer · 11-30-2006, 08:34 AM

Backup the Data
break the Raid
repartition the drives as 146GB
recreate the raid Array
restore the data

Unless your Hardware RAID controller supports RAID expansion on the fly, in which case consult the manual for your controller on how to accomplish that task.

for example..
http://www.3ware.com/products/serial_ata9000.asp

Code:

3ware® 9000 Series Feature

    * Optimized hardware XOR RAID 5 engine provides true hardware based RAID and intelligent drive management functions
    * Supports RAID levels 0, 1, 10, 5, 50, Single Disk (JBOD)
    * Single array capacity scales to over 3 terabytes per controller (64-bit LBA support)
    * 128 MB of ECC protected SDRAM, upgradable to 256 MB
    * Battery Backup Unit (BBU) ready
    * Online Capacity Expansion ready
    * StorSwitch point-to-point, non-blocking switched architecture for highest performance
    * Bootable array support for greater fault tolerance
    * Variable stripe size for performance tuning by application
    * Multiple array background initialization for immediate data redundancy
    * Host controller and drive command queuing for highest performance
    * Multiple card support (up to 4) within a system for large storage requirements
    * Multiple logical volumes and RAID levels can exist on one card for maximum configuration flexibility
    * Legacy and SATA II out of band (OOB) staggered drive spin-up support
    * Hot-swap and hot-spare support for data availability
    * Dynamic sector repair for robust data protection
    * S.M.A.R.T. disk drive monitoring for reliability
    * SMTP support for email/pager notification
    * Emergency Flash Recovery protects against power failure during firmware upgrades
    * Support for drive activity LED
    * Flexible task scheduling for increased useability
    * Multi-lane connectors based on the Infiniband SFF-8470 specification
    * Complete configuration management suite
    * 3ware BIOS Manager (3BM) - BIOS configuration tool
    * 3ware Disk Manager 2 (3DM 2) - browser-based management tool
    * Command Line Interface (CLI) - scriptable configuration tool

The manuals for this controller would outline how to use the 3Ware utilities to expand the array while it is live..

julian23 · 11-30-2006, 08:40 AM

cheers mate, you were right, hardware issue....forgot to expand the raid in the hp utility...doh!

farslayer · 11-30-2006, 10:51 AM

Gotta love the easy fix, and TRUE HARDWARE BASED RAID controllers..

Glad you got it all worked out.