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Adding Hard Drive to Raid 5

I am having trouble (nervous) in adding a hard disk to my logical drive. I have 3 disks currently in a Raid 5 and i want to add another disk to that current logical drive. The disks are all the same size but i am wondering how i can add the new disk to the already created raid 5 group. I am using Adaptec Storage Manager and my first thought is to initialize the drive and then some how merge it with the other three disks.. any advice would help.

Thanks

Edit: I should explain that there are currently 3 disks in the Raid 5 and i would like to add another disk as possibly a hot spare. I have read a few of the other topics and i am wondering if i initialize the disk, then add it as a hot swap.. would this add it to the 3 other disk and create Raid 5 with 3 + 1 hot? I am running out of disk space on my C drive and want to add more to it.

noxcho

What exact RAID controller is used by you?

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Merete

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Epic7

ASKER

noxcho "What exact RAID controller is used by you?"

Controller 1 (adaptec 2120s)

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noxcho

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Epic7

ASKER

noxcho - you hit it on the nose.

What i did:

1. installed new HD in the server
2. remote connected to the server and opened Adaptec Storage Manager
3. clicked the non-used HD and selected Initilize
4. I then clicked on the logical device and clicked create new
5. At that time it allowed me to add the new HD to the current Raid 5 configuration
6. The raid is now rebuilding

Epic7

ASKER

I figured it out but had good answeres from the following users.

Thanks

Merete

Glad to have helped. Thanks