We have a server with 8 bays that only has 5 drives installed. The 5 drives were set up as a RAID 6 array. We now need to add more storage space to the server but there are only 3 empty bays left. Can we install 3 new drives and set them up as a RAID 5 then do an LVM expansion to extend the storage space to include the space on the new virtual disk? The server is running Redhat 6 and the controller is a Dell H710P, so should support both raids. We normally use the same type array on an LVM expansion, but I've never tried across different type arrays . All the drives will be the same size.

Managing two different RAID types is a little weird, but LVM won't care what type of block device is underneath.

Another alternative would be to add the drives to the existing RAID 6 and reshape it, assuming your controller supports that. Performance would be better if the disks are interleaved rather than in two sequential chunks.

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Thanks for the quick response! I'm glad to know we have the ability to extend across different array types. I'll research reshaping the current RAID, to avoid having two different arrays. I like that idea.