Increase size of the LSI MTP IR without data loss - Windows 2003 OS

[eagertolearn]

Hi All,

I have a server which configured with LSI MPT Integrated RAID with the size of 2*100GB disks. Now i need to increase the size of the disks without data loss. The server is running with windows 2003.

So I tried the below,

* Unplugged the secondary 100GB disk
* Inserted the new 200GB disk into the secondary disk slot
* Sync the raid
* Once the raid sync done unplugged the primary disk 100G
* Inserted the new 200G disk into the primary disk slot
* Sync the raid
* Once the raid sync and reboot the server

The issue is after the disk size got increased we are unable to see the additional size of the disk inside of OS. Since in LSI MPT BIOS we are still seeing the old size only.

Here are my questions,

* How to increase the size at LSI MPT BIOS level without data loss?
* How to make the OS detect the new additional size?
* How to make the raid sync as fast? (Since the raid sync taking too much of time)


Thanks.

 

[WyomingKnott]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you can't. What you will probably have to do is to buy an external disk, back everything up to it, test the backup, build a new 200 GB Raid with the new 200GB drives, and restore the backup.

 

[eagertolearn]

Okay.. In this case can you tell me what is the best way that I can back and restore both C and D drives. Since I dont want to re-configure the entire things again and I want to keep all the configurations.

May i know why can't we increase the size while its in RAID?

 

[eagertolearn]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you can't. What you will probably have to do is to buy an external disk, back everything up to it, test the backup, build a new 200 GB Raid with the new 200GB drives, and restore the backup.

Okay.. In this case can you tell me what is the best way that I can back and restore both C and D drives. Since I dont want to re-configure the entire things again and I want to keep all the configurations.

May i know why can't we increase the size while its in RAID?

 

[eagertolearn]

Hi,

Okay i found one solution. There is an utility called sas2ircu which we can use this for adding the hotspare disks.. By this way we can add two new large size disks as hotspare and make one by one array disks as failed.. so that newly added hotspare disks will be utilized. But the thing is i want to how to extend the size after the new disks are active?

 

[WyomingKnott]

"back and restore both C and D drives."

Your system drive is on the RAID? That makes it too risky for me to give advice on. Wait for someone who has actually done it to weigh in.

 

[popatim]

1: backups should always be performed before doing any disk work. What happens to you/your company should you fail and lose all the data on both drives?

2: view the array>manage array> Online Capacity Expansion (OCE)
2b: When that is done expand the partition in the OS.