HP NetRAID 1 Controller - Manual (Page 17)

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Reconstruction and New Volumes
After using the array created above, assume you are nearing the 12 gigabyte limit and you want to
add another 4 gigabyte drive to the existing array. This can be done without downing the server or
rebooting the system.
6. Add Capacity by Reconstruction.
Add the new physical drive to the adapter by plugging it into an empty hot swap storage slot. Bring
up NetRAID Assistant under NT. Select the logical drive and the new physical drive. Then select
Logical Drive/Change Config/Add Capacity. This will reconstruct the current 4 drive RAID 5 array
to a 5 drive RAID 5 array. When reconstruction is complete, the real storage capacity will now be
16 gigabytes. Reconstruction occurs in the background, so the original 12 gigabyte volume will still
be available during the reconstruction process.
The reconstruction rate is about 80 to 180 megabytes per minute (depending drive performance,
system loading, etc.). Count the capacity to be reconstructed as the number of physical drives
participating in the reconstruction times drive capacity.
7. Partition and Format New Capacity.
When the reconstruction is completed, enter the Disk Administrator. The original drive is still
shown as E: and is 12 gigabytes. You can now select the unpartitioned area, and create a primary
partition of 4 gigabytes. Format the new partition, and for this example you will now have another
drive (say F:) of 4 gigabytes without rebooting. You can exit the Disk Administrator and begin use
of the new capacity on the F volume.
If it is required that expanded capacity and the original capacity share the same drive letter, this can
be done but will require rebooting NT. The added capacity must be partitioned as an extended
partition, then select the original and new (extended) partition. Use the selection "Extend Partition"
to make the two partitions share the same drive letter (E: for this example). You will need to reboot
NT before any part of E: becomes available again. If you accidentally enter more capacity than is
actually available, NT will detect the error upon rebooting as it will execute a check-disk operation
on the extended volume.
Operating System and Data on the Disk Array
Sometimes it is desirable to have the OS and user data both reside on the disk array, either on the
same logical drive (one array) or on separate logical drives (two or more arrays). The advantage is
that the OS will reside on a redundant drive. Again, to reconstruct a logical drive it must be
configured as 1 logical drive on an array.
For the case where the disk array is used as the boot device and contains user data, Virtual Sizing
can still be used. The key limitation is that NT only allows a FAT boot partition size of 4 gigabytes
or less. The disk array can be configured with an array just for the boot partition/OS and another
array for user data. The second array/logical drive would be used for Virtual Sizing as detailed in
the above steps. For this case, the boot partition could not be used for capacity expansion.
If the OS and data need to be on a single array (and single logical drive), multiple partitions are
needed for capacity expansion. Enable Virtual Sizing for the logical drive. As in the above steps,
the logical drive will be shown with the virtual capacity of 81,917 megabytes. Create a FAT boot
partition of 4 gigabytes or less for the OS which will become the C: volume. Create a second
partition for the data which will become for example the D: volume. The remaining virtual capacity
can be used for expansion by creating additional partitions for new volumes as explained above.