Expanding RAID array - VMWare reports all drives In critical array
I added three new hard drives to my HP Proliant 380 and started the expansion process. Now, in VMware, it's reporting that all 8 drives are in critical array and current state is assert. It also shows the warning that the RAID is currently expanding. My VMs booted up fine.
Is this something I need to worry about, as perhaps one of these new drives is bad, or is this hopefully normal behavior since the RAID is expanding?
The three drives I added did report that they need a firmware update, which I plan to do after the expansion is complete. Perhaps this could be the cause?
Thanks.
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Last Comment
Andrew Hancock (VMware vExpert PRO / EE Fellow/British Beekeeper)
All drives in a same RAID should ideally have same Part Number and same firmware, so firmware update has to be done before adding the new drives to the existing RAID array.
ruhkus
ASKER
Thanks. The errors went away once the expansion completed.
With regard to the firmware, I agree that I should've done it first, but HP's site was down when I tried to authenticate to download the service pack software, so I opted to do the expansion first. I have the HD rom flash software, but that needs Windows. I assumed I'd need to configure the drives in the array first before WIndows would've seen them, but perhaps that assumption was wrong.
Any caveats with doing the firmware update afterwards now that the expansion is complete?
All drives in a same RAID should ideally have same Part Number and same firmware, so firmware update has to be done before adding the new drives to the existing RAID array.