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Solved
How to Extend RAID 1 partition?
Posted on 2009-07-07
Our server is a Dell PowerEdge 860 running Windows 2003 with SAS disks. RAID 1 was running between two 140GB disks. There were two partitions created, C: for system and D: for data.
We ran out of space and so purchased two 1TB drives. We installed them one by one letting the RAID 1 rebuild. So now we have two 1TB drives in the server but in Windows it shows the virtual drive with 140GB of space.
Now that we have the drives in and mirrored I would like to extend the D: partition to consume the now available space on the 1TB drive. Unfortunatley Windows only sees the 140GB so I cannot extend.
I booted into the LSI Logic Config Utility For Dell SAS 5 extend v6.12.02.00 and can find no way to extend the volume here either. Any pointers greatly appreciated!
We ran out of space and so purchased two 1TB drives. We installed them one by one letting the RAID 1 rebuild. So now we have two 1TB drives in the server but in Windows it shows the virtual drive with 140GB of space.
Now that we have the drives in and mirrored I would like to extend the D: partition to consume the now available space on the 1TB drive. Unfortunatley Windows only sees the 140GB so I cannot extend.
I booted into the LSI Logic Config Utility For Dell SAS 5 extend v6.12.02.00 and can find no way to extend the volume here either. Any pointers greatly appreciated!
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21 Comments
Active today
Does it mean that your Windows Disk Management snap-in failed to detect new drives' space?
If yes, then first of all check if LBA is enabled: http://www.48bitlba.com/
Then take backup of the system and data (that would be worth of having).
Enter Windows Disk Management and see if the space is detected. If not, reconfigure the RAID and restore from backup to new 1TB configuration.
All can be done with Partition Manager 10 Server Edition. It can backup, clone and repartition the drive.
If you need detailed instructions, just let me know.
www.partition-manager.com
If yes, then first of all check if LBA is enabled: http://www.48bitlba.com/
Then take backup of the system and data (that would be worth of having).
Enter Windows Disk Management and see if the space is detected. If not, reconfigure the RAID and restore from backup to new 1TB configuration.
All can be done with Partition Manager 10 Server Edition. It can backup, clone and repartition the drive.
If you need detailed instructions, just let me know.
www.partition-manager.com
Active 1 day ago
On the Raid configuration of 2 physical drives you now have one logical drive of 140GB, and two time 860GB of free space. You have to use the LSI config utility to create a second logical drive from the free space. AFAIK it isn't possible to extend the logical drive.
Active today
Can you take a screen shot of Windows Disk Management and post it here? If the space is there, detected and available then you can extended the partitions.
Active 1 day ago
As i mentioned earlier, the SAS config utility shows one logical drive and 2 x 800GB of free space. Use that utility to create a second logical drive.
What is confusing about the terminology is that RAID takes physical drives (2 or more) and creates from them a logical drive (Raid 1 or Raid 5) , which is then presented to to OS as one physical drive.
What is confusing about the terminology is that RAID takes physical drives (2 or more) and creates from them a logical drive (Raid 1 or Raid 5) , which is then presented to to OS as one physical drive.
Active today
Then why did it fail mirroring them correctly? The procedure used by canuckconsulting while replacing the drive was quite correct.
Active 1 day ago
noxcho: These are SAS drives. According to the link you provided LBA is for IDE.
Deroode: We want to end up with a single data drive. Is an option to break the mirror or will that even help?
Deroode: We want to end up with a single data drive. Is an option to break the mirror or will that even help?
Hi,
deroode is right. What happened here is that 1 TB drives were used to replace member drives in a RAID 1 array configured to be 140 GB in size.
When the first 1 TB drive was added, the RAID controller said 'hey, one of my 140 GB drives was replaced with a 1 TB drive. It's big enought so I'll just use 140 GB of it to replace the 140 GB drive that was removed. I won't use the rest of the space on this big replacement drive since I only need 140 GB to fill the need of my RAID1 mirrored partition.'
The remaining space will never be visible to Windows until the LSI utility is used to configure an additional logical drive in the free space. Use the free space on both of the drives to create another RAID1 logical partition.
Good Luck,
- gurutc
deroode is right. What happened here is that 1 TB drives were used to replace member drives in a RAID 1 array configured to be 140 GB in size.
When the first 1 TB drive was added, the RAID controller said 'hey, one of my 140 GB drives was replaced with a 1 TB drive. It's big enought so I'll just use 140 GB of it to replace the 140 GB drive that was removed. I won't use the rest of the space on this big replacement drive since I only need 140 GB to fill the need of my RAID1 mirrored partition.'
The remaining space will never be visible to Windows until the LSI utility is used to configure an additional logical drive in the free space. Use the free space on both of the drives to create another RAID1 logical partition.
Good Luck,
- gurutc
Active 1 day ago
The mirroring did not fail. When replacing a 140GB drive with a 1TB drive the 140GB logical drive (which was created from mirroring twho 140GB physical drives) is re-mirrored on the 1TB drive (of which of course only 140GB is used, and the rest stays free).
After remirror is complete the 140GB logical drive consists of one 140GB physical drive, and a 140GB chunk of a 1TB drive.
Then after replacing the second drive the 140GB logical drive is remirrored on the other 1TB drive, of which also the rest stays free.
You can now use the two free parts to create a second logical drive, which will be presented to the OS as a a second physical drive.
After remirror is complete the 140GB logical drive consists of one 140GB physical drive, and a 140GB chunk of a 1TB drive.
Then after replacing the second drive the 140GB logical drive is remirrored on the other 1TB drive, of which also the rest stays free.
You can now use the two free parts to create a second logical drive, which will be presented to the OS as a a second physical drive.
Active 1 day ago
Great, two people typing the same stuff with different words... hitting submit on the same time...
If you really want a single data drive (why?) then it's best to backup, delete the logical drive altogether, create a new drive, and restore from backup...
If you really want a single data drive (why?) then it's best to backup, delete the logical drive altogether, create a new drive, and restore from backup...
Active today
Ok, my fault, missed SAS.
Now to resolve the issue in correct way and get the results you wanted (single HDD with two partitions on it) use backup\restore way.
Backup both C: and D: drives. Then rebuild the RAID the way you wanted to have it and restore to it using Resize proportionally feature. This can be done either with Partition Manager 10 or Drive Backup 9.0
BTW, trial version of Drive Backup 9.0 should be able to this task.
Now to resolve the issue in correct way and get the results you wanted (single HDD with two partitions on it) use backup\restore way.
Backup both C: and D: drives. Then rebuild the RAID the way you wanted to have it and restore to it using Resize proportionally feature. This can be done either with Partition Manager 10 or Drive Backup 9.0
BTW, trial version of Drive Backup 9.0 should be able to this task.
Active today
Here is a link: www.drive-backup.com
Trial will do all you need.
Trial will do all you need.
Another way to do this is to put the 140 GB drives back in, one at a time, until they are the drives supporting your installation. Once the RAID1 is running on the 140 GB drives you can back up the system, take out both 140 GB drives setting them aside, and put in the 1 TB drives setting up whatever size partitions you want and then restore to them.
If you do it this way you have your data safe and sound on the 140 GB drives in case you need to get the server back up or if your backups don't work.
But really, all you need to do is create another logical drive using the array manager utility on the remaining free space of the 1 TB drives.
Good Luck,
- gurutc
If you do it this way you have your data safe and sound on the 140 GB drives in case you need to get the server back up or if your backups don't work.
But really, all you need to do is create another logical drive using the array manager utility on the remaining free space of the 1 TB drives.
Good Luck,
- gurutc
replacing any disk in a logical drive whether it is raid 1, 5, or any with any disk with a higher specs will be downgraded to the hw specs (size, speed) of the disk that is member of logical drive.
the rule of thumb is if you want to increase the useable size of the server logical drive, first you should BACKUP the data, "DELETE" the existing logical drive , RE-CREATE the logical drive with the desire array configuration (lowest disk specs with be the performance of your logical drive), INSTALL OS and APPS, then RESTORE your data.
-freethatman
the rule of thumb is if you want to increase the useable size of the server logical drive, first you should BACKUP the data, "DELETE" the existing logical drive , RE-CREATE the logical drive with the desire array configuration (lowest disk specs with be the performance of your logical drive), INSTALL OS and APPS, then RESTORE your data.
-freethatman
Hi,
Another way to handle this is to build an Ultimate Boot CD for Windows with Ghost support.
Get the ubcd4win at:
www.ubcd4win.com
Build this cd, boot from it, and image your 140 GB install to an external USB drive. Then put in the 1 TB drives, build the big array, and image back to them, adjusting the Windows partition size(s) within Ghost to whatever size you need.
Do it this way and you don't have to reinstall anything. This is how I do all my servers when partition sizes need changing.
Good Luck,
- gurutc
Another way to handle this is to build an Ultimate Boot CD for Windows with Ghost support.
Get the ubcd4win at:
www.ubcd4win.com
Build this cd, boot from it, and image your 140 GB install to an external USB drive. Then put in the 1 TB drives, build the big array, and image back to them, adjusting the Windows partition size(s) within Ghost to whatever size you need.
Do it this way and you don't have to reinstall anything. This is how I do all my servers when partition sizes need changing.
Good Luck,
- gurutc
my recommendation and base from my past experiences with different hw servers and storages is not to use any software solution rather than solution provided by the hw manufacturer.
Iam not saying that this could not be done in any third party software solution but what iam wanted to raise is how to recover in the event when any disk member of the logical disk fails.
-freethatman
Iam not saying that this could not be done in any third party software solution but what iam wanted to raise is how to recover in the event when any disk member of the logical disk fails.
-freethatman
Active today
I do such operations almost every week using the tool I did recommend. Nothing complicated. Quite easy and quick. Install Drive Backup, take image of HDD, create Recovery CD via Recovery Media Builder. Image can be saved either on USB drive or network share.
Run the RAID tool to configure new RAID1, then boot from Recovery CD - run Network Configurator if the image is on network, or run Simple Restore Wizard if the image is on USB drive and go on with restore.
After this reboot the server to new drives.
Run the RAID tool to configure new RAID1, then boot from Recovery CD - run Network Configurator if the image is on network, or run Simple Restore Wizard if the image is on USB drive and go on with restore.
After this reboot the server to new drives.
Theres no problem with that. If you live with it then let it be.
But please lets take the advantages of using the array controller that has it own processor and cache memory to handle raid calculations and mirror/stripped management. iam referring to hw raid solution provided with this manufacturer, let the server CPU "only" for OS/Apps not for logical disk management.
proper configuration, management, any choosing the right raid level will make our life easier plus having the advance management software solution from them.
i thinnk we're moving out of topic now...
But please lets take the advantages of using the array controller that has it own processor and cache memory to handle raid calculations and mirror/stripped management. iam referring to hw raid solution provided with this manufacturer, let the server CPU "only" for OS/Apps not for logical disk management.
proper configuration, management, any choosing the right raid level will make our life easier plus having the advance management software solution from them.
i thinnk we're moving out of topic now...
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