Adding to a RAID

Previously Carl Hilton <carlvh DeleteThis @gmail.com> wrote:
 > What is the general rule about adding hard drives to a RAID? I
 > currently have a DELL with a RAID consisting of 4 36GB SCSI drives...
 > and I have two blank slots... If I add to those empty slots, does it
 > have to be with matched drives or can I drop in a 200GB SCSI drive? or
 > is it based on the RAID controller?

Larger disks are allways fine, AFAIK. Depending on the RAID
controller, you can or cannot use the extra space for something
else. I think in practice this means that you can use the exta
space only in partition based software-RAID, although there
may be some hardware RAID contollers that give you access.

From my oexperiences software RAID on partitions lets you do
almost anything, while hardware RAID tends to be unflexible.

Arno<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Adding to a RAID 

PowerEdge 2500 using the Parc 3/DI RAID controller.
 >> Stay informed about: Adding to a RAID 

 > PowerEdge 2500 using the Parc 3/DI RAID controller.

What backplanes do you have? 1x6 or 2x3?
I assume 1x6 (you have mention 4 drives there).

Can you post your current RAID config?

It is very likely that you would have to backup your storage,
reconfigure RAID and restore, to take advantage of additional
disk drives.
Alternatively you may just add additional RAID container with
added disk(s).<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Adding to a RAID 

I think I'll go with an external storage RAID and combine them in the
OS.
 >> Stay informed about: Adding to a RAID 

I think I'll go with an external storage RAID and combine them in the
OS.
 >> Stay informed about: Adding to a RAID