Increasing Local Storage options

[pattywmom]

Hello,

We have several B440 blades that have 2x72gb drives in a raid-10/mirror array for local storage.  We would like to increase them to 146gb drives.  I have been unable to locate any documentation / support that shows what would be the best path to do this.  ie - in our HP servers, you can swap 1 drive, let the array rebuild, swap the other drive, let the array rebuild and then the array config utilites allow you to utilize the additional space.

We have the new drives and I have a spare blade to play on, so I'm happy to take ideas if no one is quite sure how to perform this.

Thank you!

[Robert Burns]

Pat,

Would be helpful to know which RAID controller you're using.  I assume it's an LSI MegaRAID, but please provide the exact model.

Regards,

Robert

[Robert Burns]

Though that procedure might work, you likely wont find any documentation from HP, Cisco or LSI on it - as it's not a supported method to increase array capacity.

If this is a lab system you're welcome to test this, but you do so at your own risk.  I wouldn't recommend this on a production system.

The Cisco version of the LSI MegaRAID User guide can be found here:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/unified_computing/ucs/3rd-party/lsi/mrsas/userguide/LSI_MR_SAS_SW_UG.pdf

This will at least explain how to increase a logical volume's capacity  (to take advanrage of the extra space) once the smaller disks have been  swapped for larger ones and re-sync'd.

Regards,

Robert

[pattywmom]

Sorry for the delay answering, I work overnight.

It is an LSI MegaSAS 9260

HP definitely has a supported method for doing just this, and has for quite some time. 

I'm a little confused by your reply - is there a supported method for inscreasing local storage ?  Your reply implies that Cisco has no such supported method?  What is the recommendation if a customer has to increase the size of their local storage? 

I will definitely use the guide above to help figure out the steps, but these are production servers we eventually need to do this with, so the supported recommendation is greatly appreciated!!

Thank you!

[Robert Burns]

I don't believe we have such a guide/doc yet.  Something we obviously need. 

I'd like to see the HP doc for comparative sake.  I'll advise our docs team we're in need of something similar.

Thanks,

Robert

[pattywmom]

                   Does we don't have a doc mean that it's not supported?  If it is not supported, what is the supported method for a customer to increase their local storage?

Thank you!!

[Robert Burns]

Normally if we don't mention that we explicitly support it, then we do not.  As this seems to be a reasonable request let me see what we can do to address this.  Might take a little time to produce such a doc, but I'll see if we can garnish a "supported" yeh or nay from engineering on this.

I'll update this thread as soon as I have more info  -stay tuned.

Regards,

Robert

[pattywmom]

In the "for what it's worth" category, I swapped out the drives (one at a time, allowing the array to rebuild in between), used MSM and expanded the drive, diskmgmt to expand for windows and Voila!  VERY VERY quick and easy! 

Thanks a lot!

[Robert Burns]

Thanks for the comment Patricia.  Glad to know it works!  I'm still in discussions with our engineering & docs teams to have this documented.

Regards,

Robert