How to add new HD in existing RAID 5

2 drives indicates they are RAID 1, which are mirrored. 2 x 36GB = 36GB. This is an industry standard config. If you make any changes you will lose the array making it RAID 0 (no RAID - no longer hot swap), and or the complete loss of OS / data.

Instead make another logical drive for data storage. You need three or four drives to set up as RAID 5, again an industry standard config.

Make sure to back up in all instances. GL

I am not familiar with your RAID controller card but as long as the controller can see two additional drives, it shouldn't be difficult to add two new drives to your exisiting RAID 5 configuration.

You will probably need to reinitialize the RAID configuration for discs to copy all the parity information so you should refer to the documentation on re-initializing the RAID.

In a RAID 5 config, you need at least 3 drives (you can have more however). A small part of every drive is then reserved for recovery data for the other drives. So two drives together hold all the data needed to restore a 3rd drive.

The Raid Controllers in the Dell Poweredge Servers are hot swappable. So you can just pull the faulty disk and then insert a new replacement drive in the same slot (Needs to be the same type and size or bigger. However, if the disk is bigger than the other 2, then only the size of the two other disks will be used on the new drive). The Raid controller will then see that there is a new disk and automatically start the recovery process. You will be able to see this when you open the Controller software. Once the recovery is done, the RAID 5 will be fully functional again.

While one of the disks is faulty or missing the two remaining disks will continue to work, but at the severely degraded performance. After the rebuild the performance will be back to the way it was before.

The rebuild can take more than an hour, depending on the disk sizes used.

There is also an option on some Controllers to select one drive as a "spare". Then you insert one more disk and set it as spare. It will not start working unless one of the other disks in the Raid fails. That's when it is used automatically as a replacement.

Is the HD SAS/SCSI/SATA on a raid controller?

If so you need to enter the RAID config (not the bios, but there will be a RAID config option during the boot process CTRL+M I believe.. but it will say on screen.) Then you need to set up the raid config, then initialise, then the drive will be detected for loading the OS.

Either that or the drive(s) shafted.

What sort of disks are you using?

Hi,

As a rule of thumb, a raid 5 array can be expanded to include additional drives. This is done during the boot process and then going into your RAID controller setup. You would then go into the RAID configuration and add the new drive to the array. This was the simplified explanation but i think you get the idea.

Things to consider,
DO NOT remove the RAID array unless you dont care about losing data.
DO NOT try to add a smaller drive than what is currently part of the array.
When possible, the new drive should be identical to the existing drives, but I have added same size, same speed more than once and it will work.
All of the drives you want as part of the array must be on the same controller.

Hope this helps,
Brian

That depends on your configuration.
If the drive you want to change is installed in the peripheral bay, you have to turn the machine off before you can pull that drive out. Also: Hot-plug drive installation is not supported for systems without an integrated RAID controller or host adapter expansion card!

Look for more details on how to change a drive here.

If you have any more questions, just come back here and leave a comment - I'm happy to help.

I am not familiar with the specific model, but my guess is you can setup another separate logical vlume by using a RAID1 for the new disks. You will not be able to add the disks to the existing volume.

If there is no data, and the array supports it you can delete the existing volume and setup a RAID 5 instead, which will use all 4 disks, as long as they have the same capacity.

In raid 5 yes you can, yet you won't use the ful hard drive, the system will take only 73GB because that's the smallest HD in your array.

Just, of course, follow the indications for your specific RAID hardware/software about how to add a new HD to it:
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/software/svradmin/1.9/en/stormgmt/cntrls.html

NVIDIA RAID does not support > 2TB (18xxGB) arrays. It will NOT show up properly in Windows.

first check your bios & see what raid chips are enabled,usually there's 2. Your main raid is on the first 4 sata connectors, the other chipset probably controlls the remaining sata ports. So if there's an option to disable one raid chip,disable one,just not the one that you're using. I don't know what your bios screen looks like,so this is just a general view based on my experences with various boards,mainly asus.