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S5000VSASATR & Embedded Raid problem

GSinc
Beginner
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Hi,

I have a problem with a pair of raid 1 (mirrored) drives. The issue is I have 2 x 250 GB SATA hard disks partitioned into C and D drives however the C drive has only about 1 GB free space left and the D drive has 210 GB free. Is it possible to remove 1 hard drive from the system and and image the drive (partitions) to an identical size disk with 2 equal size partitions (125 GB each) and then put it back into the raid array without losing any data and still be able to boot from the C drive ? The OS is Windows SBS 2003. I am using the on board Raid system.

Any advice would be gladly appreciated !!!

Detailed instructions (if possible) would also be handy.

Many Thanks,

Glenn

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idata
Employee
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Hi there,

I will explain what i have done.

I have an Intel S3200SH board, i had three disks connected on my system.

Disk Information:

 

Seagate: 80GB

 

Seagate: 80GB

 

Seagate: 250GB

I have created a RAID 1 using the LSI onboard controller Embedded Server RAID Technology II.

 

Ctrl + E

 

RAID 1 created the two disks 80 GB.

Then i installed my OS Windows 2008.

 

I partitioned my drive C: into two identical partitions. (37.5 GB each)

 

I installed the Intel Raid Web Console V2.64 (downloadable from Intel Website) to see my raid configuration.

Then i restarted the system, went into the RAID BIOS Ctrl + E.

 

Objects >> Select the drive 250GB

 

There will be four options:

 

Make Hot Spare

 

Force Online

 

Force Offline

 

Drive Properties

Select the Make HotSpare.

 

Save and Exit.

Go into the Windows.

 

Raid Web COnsole >> The drive configuration will be shown overthere: RAID1 & Hotspare.

I disconnected one of the 80 GB HDD, automatically the drive starts rebuilding the array.

 

After rebuilding complete, the partition was exactly the same as before. But i cannot access the 170GB anymore. The raid was built on a basis 80GB.

I have attached a word doc where there are screenshots.

Hope this helps a bit.

Kind Regards,

 

Aryan.
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idata
Employee
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This is a difficult process frought with risk to loose data. You should backup your configuratin prior to attempting to remove a drive or change capacities of the raid configuration or the OS partition.

Adding capacity must be thought of in two layers:

1. Adding capacity to the RAID Virtual Drive (RAID 1 mirror by expanding the virtual drive on existing physical drives or adding larger hard physical drives and expanding the virtual drive)

2. Adding or modifying capacity of of the operating system parition(s) within the existing RAID1 Virtual Drive capacity.

From your question, I believe you are wanting to shrink your Drive "D", and expand your Drive "C" OS partitions within and existing RAID 1 Virtual Drive, without changing the Virtual Drive capacity.

Likely you do not have "Dynamic Partitions" created in Windows (they allow you to dynamically change partions sizes), probably you have created standard partitions. It is possible to modify NTFS parition size using Microsofts Disk Partition Tool (Diskpart.exe) or a third party application like "Parition Magic". I have not tested this using ESRTII Embedded RAID configurations, but depending on the application it should work. I would recommend that your research this with the application of your choice prior to purchasing such and application, and run some experiments before attempting this on a production server.

Robert

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idata
Employee
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Hey gas55au!

If i read your posting correct you only have 2 attached hard drives in your server, is this correct?

Do you know this MS articel? http://support.microsoft.com/kb/249694/en-us http://support.microsoft.com/kb/249694/en-us

I made this move several times and it works fine.

In your your case, i would do the following

- adding two new drives to the server

- create a second raid 1 array

- partition the new array as wanted as a pure data array and move your hole data from partition d: to the new arry using ntbackup

- temporary replacment of one of the original discs by a temporary spare drive when the server is turned off (so you have your desaster backup)

- remirror the 250gb array

- backup your c: drive of the sbs server as written in the MS knowldgebase articel (maybe to free disc space on the second, larger array - thats fast)

- reinstall in minimum Windows server on your orginial raid 1 (because you have a backup on the second array AND an original disc of your raid 1 you now can make your c partition as big as you want it)

- restore the server as descriped

- when the server works fine for a week or so you can remove the temporary mirror partner of your 250GB raid 1 with the original disc which was your desaster recover solution.

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