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Roger Alcindor

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How to upgrade disk storage RAID 1

I am planning to upgrade A Dell T110 with two 1TB SATA disks; replacing the two
exiting 200 GB SATA disks.
The current system is configured as RAID 1.
The disks are partitioned as a system drive C: - 30 GB and a data drive D: 170 GB;
I have BackupExec 2012 installed on the current system.
I plan to take a backup of the existing C: drive and the existing D: drive as two one-time backups to an external USB disk.
I will then proceed as follows:
a) I will disconnect the exiting disks and connect the new disks to the RAID controller card
in place of the original disks.
b) I will then restore the C: drive backup onto the new disks.
c) I am assuming at this stage, the C: drive on the system will be 1 TB in size /
d) I will then reduce the partition size to 100GB (which is what I require)
e) I will then create an extended partition ( drive D:) which will be 900 GB.
f) I will then restore the drive D: backup to the new drive D:

The existing disks will remain disconnected.

Apart from power cycling, do I need to do anything between steps a) and b  ? to configure RAID 1.
I will be booting the PC from the Backup Exec recovery disk.
Will it be a simple task to reduce the system partition size from 1TB to 100 GB as stated in d) ?
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rindi
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If you are using the RAID controller of the Server to provide you with the array, you will of course have to create a new array before restoring the backup.

I don't use any of that symantec crap, so I don't really know about it. But most backup software, when you do a restore, you can select the partition size you want. If it is possible, you should try to restore to the 100GB you require. Although Windows 2008 or above can shrink a system partition via diskmanagement, you usually can't shrink it all the way (you can expect to shrink it from 1TB down to ca 250GB for example, but probably not down to 100GB). So if you can't already tell your restore utility to restore to the size you want, you may need another 3rd party tool to reduce the size of the partition all the way.

Another possibility if you can't do this directly with your restore tool, is to create two RAID volumes, one 100GB, the other ca 900GB. Most RAID controllers have that ability. You would then see 2 physical disk within your OS and you would just need to restore each partition to the correct disk.
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Roger Alcindor

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Hello Rindi,
Thanks for your comments, I had already considered a second array but I was advised by Dell that the RAID controller that I have, only supports one array on the server that I have.
If I am just replacing the existing disks with larger capacity ones, will the current raid configuration need to be changed ? I haven't had any experience of setting up RAID before so I am a bit nervous about changing the configuration.
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rindi
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I plan to do this next weekend. I have received from Dell, helpful links showing the RAID controller configuration for my system.
http://downloads.dell.com/Manuals/all-products/esuprt_ser_stor_net/esuprt_dell_adapters/poweredge-rc-h200_User%27s%20Guide_en-us.pdf?c=us&l=en&cs=19&s=dhs

Thanks,

Roger
When looking at that pdf, it says in the specifications (page 20) that the maximum number of Virtual disks is 2. That means you should be able to create 2 RAID volumes within your RAID 1 array, so the last paragraph of my first comment should be possible.
Thanks for pointing that out, it may be that there is something about the Dell T110 BIOS that restricts the capability. I will check further with Dell.