In this blogpost we’ll see how to expand raid 5 in dell servers using omsa on the fly. Dell RAID 5 arrays can be expanded or converted online via the Reconfigure command within Dell OpenManage(OMSA). You can also do it via BIOS but you have to shutdown the servers.
As we all know a RAID expansion increases the space in the array. and it all needed the identical disks in the array. Let’s have a look at the steps below:
- Login to OMSA with the help of your Dell Server FQDN/IP with root credential.
- You will get the OMSA page and click on Storage as highlighted in below picture:
3. Once you expand the Storage tab, Click on Virtual Disks. And you will be able to see the as many as Virtual Disk 0, Virtual Disk 1, and Virtual Disk 3.
4. Now under the respective Virtual Disk, Click On Menu under Task Column. And Select the Reconfigure option. Once You have selected Reconfigure.. click on Execute.
5. Now You’ll get page like below and you have to scroll down the page and you’ll see the number of newly added unchecked disks and you have to checked it and click on Continue.
6. On the very next page that is step 2, You need to select the RAID level, trying to expand. In my case RAID 5. Click Ok on the alert window then Continue. You’ll also able to see the total added capacity in GB.
7. On Step3, review the configuration and click on Finish.
8. Once you hit the finish button it will redirect you on progress page with the status of reconstructing and % progress.
This way you’ll be able to expand the RAID using OMSA. This process would not take any down time on the host machine. The process of Reconstructing RAID will take few hours so keep monitoring it. There is another process of doing the above task using BIOS which we’ll discuss in another upcoming blogposts. Stay tuned.
You’ll Also Like
- Advanced Cross vCenter Server vMotion (XVM) vSphere 7 U1C – TechyG (techyguy.in)
- Solution for could not connect to one or more vCenter Server systems error – TechyGuy
- https://www.dell.com/community/PowerEdge-HDD-SCSI-RAID/Add-a-disk-in-a-raid-5/td-p/4705241
- Dell PowerEdge – Add new disk to an existing RAID 5 array – Server Fault